


Through A Glass Darkly

by luna_rapunzel



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, F/F, F/M, First War with Voldemort, Gryffindor Friendships, Hogwarts Sixth Year, M/M, Marauders, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter), Slow Burn, Teen Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27986226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna_rapunzel/pseuds/luna_rapunzel
Summary: Remus thinks back to those novels Marlene likes, the Muggle ones by Jane Austen, with the heroes who bitterly trap themselves in their own cells, who could get out if they decided to and concern themselves with dances and courtships instead. They concern themselves with frivolities, too, bring poltergeists to the Slug Club and snog, and debate whom to snog, then discuss their snogs over dying Muggle bodies and make pranks out of wars, mock green lights with firecracker sparks. They play politics with veelas over drinks in a bar and none of it makes sense, not really, when every four weeks he sheds his old bones and half these people would have him put down like a pet if they knew he was the one keeping them up at night in the Shrieking Shack. People die and kill and get killed and they sit there, all of it swirling, seeing it darkly, trying to stop it and not knowing how and grabbing a whiskey when they remember it’s not their place.-Nothing's fair in love and war anymore. xx The sixth and seventh years. JPLE, MMSB, RLSB. Starts light, gets darker. New chapters regularly!
Relationships: Alice Longbottom & Mary Macdonald & Marlene McKinnon & Lily Evans Potter & Emmeline Vance, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin & Peter Pettigrew & James Potter, Sirius Black/Marlene McKinnon, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	1. June 14th

**Author's Note:**

> Hi and thanks for reading! I'm slowly porting this story over from fanfiction.net, where I've finished publishing the entirety of sixth year. I started this story when I was 16 and finished writing sixth year when I was 26, nearly half a lifetime later. I have a lot of regrets about things I would have done differently if I'd started the story years later, but I've done my best to rectify those wrongs in the later chapters. But this fic is the biggest and most intricate piece of writing that I've ever achieved, and all of the feedback I've received make me feel better about myself when I'm down and make me want to keep writing for the people who have supported me.
> 
> Kudos and comments warm my heart and are deeply appreciated :3

_For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known._

—Corinthians

xx

“It’s simple, really,” Lily’s trying to convince him, telephone cord caught loosely around her feet. “The girls worked it out with me last week—I’m not imposing on anyone, I swear—” but it’s already late night Monday as she’s breaking the news, so she knows he doesn’t believe her.

There’s a sigh at the other end of the line. “Could you at least have let us know _before_ boarding the train that we needn’t pick you up? God—that owl you sent came in the middle of one of your mother’s brunches. Dropped your letter right in Mr. Snape’s salad—”

Lily sucks in a quick breath. “You had Sev’s _father_ to the house? Are you barmy?”

She’s sitting on a rickety stool in the McKinnons’ modest kitchen, marveling that their bought-this-morning telephone works in the house and wondering exactly when their daughter became attached at the hip to one Sirius Black—thoughts obviously far from the conversation. To be fair, Marlene’s offer of room and board until August was generous, and she’s the best in Gryffindor to turn to for a social overhaul. However, while Lily’s not in a position to be choosy, her first choice of constant summer companions wouldn’t be the Marauders—a fact that Marlene seems to have disregarded.

“Your mother wanted to ask exactly how big this fight was between the two of you—you know how she gets.” Dad’s voice is tinny over the phone, but she can almost hear him shaking his head.

“It’s big,” Lily says shortly, uncrossing her legs (the cord still stubbornly around her ankle). “I’m not _five_ anymore; you can’t just set up a play-date and decide whom I’ll be friends with.”

“Have you _met_ your mother, Lil?”

She tilts her head back in exasperation. “That’s not the point. The Snapes actually came to the house? Has Eileen forgotten we’re Muggles?”

Dad divulges, “Put on a fairly good show of it—you’d almost think she weren’t a witch herself. Likely being polite, now that they know they won’t be coming around anymore. But Lily, honey, if you’ve known for weeks, you’ve had ample time to call.”

“The phones don’t work at Hogwarts, Dad,” Lily reminds him. “Electricity and magic aren’t compatible in high quantities, remember?”

“You still could have written,” he maintains, then, changing tack, adds, “Pet would have appreciated the advance notice that you’re not coming to the wedding.”

She groans a little, quietly: she had been hoping to avoid _this_ particular discussion. “Dad, Tuney didn’t _invite_ me to the wedding.”

Dismissively, Dad retorts, “Just because you’re not _in_ the wedding doesn’t mean she doesn’t want you _at_ the wedding—”

“I see no reason why I should come to watch her lord her intolerance over me. If she’d rather have that absolute _hag,_ Linda Baker, as her maid of honor…” she breaks off disgustedly.

“Linda’s not a hag, Lily, she’s a perfectly nice girl,” replies Dad placidly. (Lily rolls her eyes.) “Anyway, _I_ see no reason why you should run off to Scotland for the summer over a petty fight and a bit of offense.”

She drums her fingers halfheartedly on the countertop, imagining his face—stoic but soft, with a genial smile. “My fight with Sev wasn’t _petty_ , Dad, it was a long time coming… Tell Mum I’ll think about it, okay? It’s on July—sixteenth, was it?” she concedes after a pause.

“Eighteenth,” he corrects, self-satisfied. “You’ll be back in England by then, I hope?”

“I’ll…” She tallies weeks quickly. “I don’t think so, but it shouldn’t matter. We have Floo powder, things like that—I’m sure I’ll pop in and out of England all the time; almost everyone at Hogwarts lives there, anyway.”

“All right,” Dad accepts. “I still don’t see why you’re spending half your summer hiding at the other end of the U.K., but—”

There’s a sudden crack of thunder that nearly rattles the house, and Lily hastens to hang up. “I’m in the Wizarding world, Dad, everything’s globalized for us. Look, I’ve got to go; we’re having a lightning storm. Love you.”

“Bye, honey.”

Lily sets the phone in its cradle and reaches down to disentangle the cord from her ankles. What Dad doesn’t realize, for all his good intentions, is that she’s not denying but rebuilding. People aren’t supposed to alienate you just for choosing a Slytherin, and that Slytherin isn’t supposed to call you a Mudblood and cut ties with you. It almost makes her regret rejecting the other Gryffindors all these years—not quite, but just enough to take Marlene up on her surprising offer to house Lily for the holidays, if only for a chance to get away from Spinner’s End and maybe make up for all that lost time.

Another thunderbolt jolts her from her reverie, and she starts towards the bedroom that she’s to share with Marlene for the next month and a half. Marlene is sprawled across one of the cots, reading, when Lily pushes the door open a couple centimeters and peers inside. “Hi,” she says to announce her presence, sidling awkwardly into the room.

Marlene glances up. “Hey,” she says lazily, turning the page. “So did your sister take the news well?”

“Honestly, I don’t think she was fazed by it; it’s more my mother I have to look out for,” Lily admits, glancing around the bedroom. It’s small but not especially cozy; the walls are covered in Quidditch posters, and she’s a little nervous about sleeping in a room with so many pairs of watchful eyes. “They’re not making me go home, but I might have to go to the wedding—probably not the reception, though, since Tuney won’t want me around all her friends.”

Marlene laughs a little under her breath. “If it’s that bad, just go to spite her, Lily. I could ask Black to go with you, make a big scene.”

“I think I’ll pass, but thanks for the offer,” Lily declines, smiling. “I don’t hate my sister _that_ much. So what do we have planned for tomorrow?” she adds offhandedly, unlocking her trunk and rummaging inside for pajamas.

“Staying here, I think,” says Marlene sheepishly. “We were going to go to Pete’s, but he had to cancel last minute—he’ll still be coming over with the others, but his parents had something come up and didn’t want us there unsupervised.”

Lily shrugs mildly, grabbing a clean pair of pajamas and her dressing gown. “No, no, it’s fine, don’t worry about it,” she insists distractedly, tugging open her robe. “What time will everyone be coming over?”

“Er… well, I _said_ quarter after eleven in case you want a few hours to get ready, but knowing Jay and Black in particular, it could be anywhere from nine to noon,” replies Marlene idly, flipping another page. “How late do you sleep in on holiday?”

Lily murmurs, “Not too late; I probably won’t be up by nine, though.” There’s silence for a few minutes as she changes and Marlene makes progress on the novel, until Lily flops down on her own cot and turns on the lamp on her bedside table. “How’s the book?”

“Decent,” Marlene muses. “Just a romance my mum recommended—you wouldn’t believe how inappropriate her tastes can get, honestly.” (Lily suppresses a thought about exactly how much of those tastes Marlene inherited.)

“Sounds like _my_ mother,” Lily mutters, “but she usually passes her library stock on to Tuney. You read much?”

Marlene shrugs. “A bit. Nothing heavy.” She slides in a bookmark and tosses the book onto the nightstand between them. “Think we should turn in? It’s going on eleven.”

“Yeah, all right,” Lily consents, peeling back the covers. A moment passes, then Marlene blows out the dim candle and all is quiet.

Lily’s startled when Marlene speaks, thinking she’d long ago fallen asleep; her voice is far too soft, too—penetrating, in a way. “I know why you’re here.”

She pauses, waiting, but Lily is cautiously motionless, making sure to keep her breaths even. “I know Snape finally hit a nerve— _why_ it took so long for you to ditch him is beyond me—but you need people more than people need you, and that’s all right, since it’s not like people hate you because of him. But look, Lily, just because you haven’t gotten close to anyone for five years doesn’t give you an excuse to feel above us—and I know what kind of reputation the Gryffindors have. Arrogant snobs, right?”

Lily doesn’t reply, half to not discuss it and half because it’s true.

“But we’re not just—we’ve got secrets, all right? Big ones. You think you know us girls because we share a dormitory, but—I’m sure you were at least a little surprised to see this house, right? And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.” Marlene draws a breath, lets it out shakily. “I don’t want to lecture you, so—don’t be so quick to judge, yeah?”

The question is still hanging when Lily falls asleep.

xx

It looks to be early when she wakes up—only a faint gleam of sunlight trickles in through the uncovered window, and there’s a soft, constant snoring coming from something in the room. It takes a minute for her to realize that it’s Marlene, as she’s momentarily forgotten where she is; Lily’s never spent the holidays away from home before. Shaking herself out of her reflections, she slides out of the cot and reaches into her trunk for her dressing-robe and slippers; donning these, she leaves the room, quietly shuts the door behind her, and promptly starts singing on her way to the kitchen—it’s a longtime summer-morning habit that she’s never bothered to break.

The tune in her head is a recent single by the name of “Moontrimmer,” popular at Hogwarts in the last month more for its beat than for its lyrics—and its wide range makes her voice crack repeatedly as she rummages through the McKinnons’ pantries, looking for cereal and utensils. “I get lost in the astronomical space between you and me,” she bellows as she gives up upon finding a stack of Chocolate Frogs and start to unwrap one. “Like the shining sea, but we’ll Banish the Kelpies if you’ll only come Moontrimming for—POTTER!”

She’s glanced over her shoulder and spotted a fairly unwelcome face. “Don’t you just love The Peverells?” he asks, unbidden, from where he’s leaning in the doorway.

Lily realizes that the Frog has jumped out of her hands and now is leaping, unfettered, across the counter. Recognizing her company, she scrambles to tie her dressing-robe tighter.

“ _Merlin_ , Red, I’m not going to molest you,” laughs James Potter.

“Potter,” she acknowledges, blushing a little. “Wait— _Red_?”

“I’m trying out new nicknames. It suits you—the red hair and all, I mean,” he says cheerfully.

He’s dressed as an obvious pureblood, though he’s taken off the school hat and exchanged black robes for midnight blue—a kind of cross between standard and dress robes, for they lack the cuffs necessary for formal occasions—and he looks scattered, his hair extra-messy and glasses askew, like he’s stumbled out of bed too early in the morning.

She rolls her eyes. “I wasn’t expecting you yet. What time is it?”

“Ten to eight,” replies Potter promptly, stepping into the kitchen. “Aren’t you going to get that?”

“Get wha—oh,” she realizes, then turns around and grabs hold of the Chocolate Frog hopping dangerously close to the edge. “Marlene said you wouldn’t be here until after eleven.”

He smiles and shuts the door behind him. “Did she mention that I like to be early?” Without waiting for an answer, he adds, “The breakfast food’s on the far left, if you’re looking for it.”

“Thanks,” Lily mutters begrudgingly, reaching in for a box of “Common Welsh Greens—Your Daily Crunchy Vegetable Staple, Now With Thirty Percent More Spice!” and a bowl. “You come here often, then?”

Potter shrugs. “Every week or two since fourth year—in the summer, that is. Your first visit, I’m guessing?”

She nods, looking for milk. “Cold drinks go in the—”

“Icebox,” Potter finishes for her, grinning. “Not that there’s any ice in it; Cooling Charms work so much better.”

“Of course,” she says, more to herself than to him. “I’m so used to the refrigerator…”

“You don’t get out very much, do you?” Potter interrupts as Lily finds the jug of milk. She turns around and stares; he blinks. “Just, you know, since all Wizarding houses use iceboxes instead of refrigerators. No electricity and all…”

She grabs a napkin and agrees haplessly, “Guess not.”

He lets her chew in silence for a minute. “Marlene still in bed?” he asks finally, when she’s already half-done.

“Yeah. How long have you been here?”

“Not too long, er…” Potter pauses to think. “Maybe ten minutes before you came in here? Wasn’t too boring until then; I brought a book.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Since when do you read for fun—since when you do read _at all_?”

His laughter fills up the tiny room. “It’s _Quidditch Through the Ages_ , not the Apocalypse.” Lily tilts her head in consideration, then drains the remaining milk and crumbs and brings the bowl to the sink. When she turns to leave the kitchen, Potter’s looking at her intently, his brow furrowed. “I thought you hated me, Red.”

“It’s Evans,” she corrects softly. She lowers her eyes and gently pushes past him to the door. “I never hated you, Potter,” Lily mumbles before stepping gratefully out into the hall.

“So are we friends, then?” he calls after her, right on her tail.

She bursts into the living room and throws herself in an armchair, where he can’t scoot in next to her. “What makes you think you know me well enough to be my friend?” she retorts, starting to get annoyed.

“I know you have Common Welsh Greens every morning because you hate vegetables but want the nutrition in them,” Potter blurts out, sitting on the loveseat across from me. “I know you’re one of the few students at Hogwarts who enjoys History of Magic. I know you’ve been friends with Snape since you were eight—”

“Don’t talk to me about Snape,” she spits.

Potter visibly pulls back, away from her. “I know you’re here because of him,” he adds softly.

Lily exhales shakily, taking a second to compose herself. “None of which you heard from me,” she insists.

“Then let me get to know you.”

She fidgets uncomfortably and eventually meets his eyes. “I should go get dressed.”

The intensity dies down; Potter grins genially again. “But you’re so much more attractive wearing outgrown pajamas and hair looking like— _that_.” Lily touches her (undoubtedly frizzy) hair self-consciously; he smirks in response.

She suggests, less than threatens, that he not do anything stupid, and she all but sprints out of the living room. Retreating down the hall to Marlene’s room, Lily hears Potter pick up the song in a disjointed alto: “So won’t you say with me, _Reducio!_ To the astronomical space between you and me…”

She takes as long as she reasonably can to get ready for the day. Wizarding though Potter’s clothes may be, Lily opt for her more comfortable attire—jeans and an Appleby Arrows T-shirt—before painstakingly setting to work on brushing her hair. It’s a lengthy task even without her purposeful lack of speed, given that it’s so thick and tangled. About ten minutes into the task, Marlene stirs in her cot and promptly buries her head under the pillow.

“G’morning,” Lily says, though it’s less a cheery greeting than a snarl as she yanks fruitlessly at an especially stubborn knot.

Marlene rolls on her stomach. “Five more minutes, Mum,” she mutters—quietly, with her mouth now pressed up against the mattress.

“That’s Lily to you,” Lily corrects her casually, “and you’ll want to go say hello to your guests; Potter has been here already for at least half an hour.”

“Half an _hour_?” moans Marlene half-irritably, half-incredulously. “It’s got to be…”

Lily reaches around her cot for the nightstand and grabs her watch. “Half-past eight. Nearly an hour, then, and Black might have shown up in the ten minutes I’ve been in here, too.”

“So you’re hiding from Jay?” Marlene asks dully, now having resigned herself to awakening and dragging herself off the cot. “I’ll apologize on his behalf if he said anything grossly inappropriate. Merlin, I said _after eleven_ …”

“In your defense as a hostess, you did warn me they’ll probably get here early,” Lily says with finality. “Hopefully you have an extra brush; I might be occupied with this one for a while.”

She nods, glancing at Lily fully. “Arrows suck,” she comments offhand of Lily’s apparel. “Everyone knows the Magpies are the most successful team in the league.”

“Not everyone takes a regional interest in supporting Scottish teams, Marlene,” Lily retorts. “I thought you Scots wanted devolution, anyway, not centralization by taking over the country.”

“What?”

Lily shakes her head and yanks hard on the brush. “Muggle politics. I forgot for a minute that no one in the Wizarding world keeps up with it. Do you even know who the Prime Minister is?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” shrugs Marlene, throwing open her dresser drawer (she’d unpacked last night when Lily was on the phone with Dad). After a pause, she closes it. “On second thought, everyone coming sees me more often in PJs than not. Try to be quick, yeah? I won’t abandon you with Jay again, I swear.”

“Yeah, all right,” Lily agrees over her shoulder as Marlene leaves the room with a little wave.

After another fifteen minutes of battle with the brush, Lily gives it up, not wanting to keep Marlene waiting (however much she may want to avoid Potter), and takes it with her back into the living room. Black is here by now, though she can hardly see him from the other side of the _Daily Prophet_ he has open. Lily skims the headline with dread: “MINISTRY REPORTS DEATHS OF ANOTHER THREE MUGGLE-BORNS.”

“Voldemort again?” she asks, curling up in the same armchair, patterned-pink and overstuffed, as before. She would dread the answer if it weren’t so inevitable.

Black nods, not looking up. “Morning, Evans,” he greets gruffly, flipping the page.

“Red,” acknowledges Potter simultaneously.

“ _Evans_ ,” she tells him in vain. From her seat next to Black on the couch, Marlene dismally fails to pass off her laugh as a cough.

Surprisingly, it’s nice, just sitting. Students don’t leave their dormitories at Hogwarts without dressing for school first, so the casualness of the day sets a more comfortable, less avoid-Gryffindor-housemates-at-all-costs atmosphere—even if she is in the room with the two Marauder ringleaders. Potter keeps watching her out the corner of his eye, though, so Lily eventually breaks the silence to ask Marlene, “Anyone else coming?”

“You’re morphing into quite the social butterfly there, Red,” comments Potter unnecessarily.

Warningly, Lily spits out her surname again.

Black promptly sneezes all over the _Prophet_.

This time not bothering to keep her laughter to herself, Marlene replies, “Lupe and Pete, plus Mary if she can find a way to come out.”

She’s referring to Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and Mary Macdonald, all Gryffindors. “Why wouldn’t she be able to?” Lily asks distantly.

“Doesn’t live near enough to anyone hooked up to the Floo Network,” says Marlene, passing Black a box of tissues to clear his mucus off the paper.

Lily nods, pursing her lips. “It’ll probably be another couple hours before Lupin and Pettigrew arrive, then.”

“Mmh,” mumbles Marlene, glancing over Black’s shoulder at the paper that he’s now resumed reading.

“So it’s just us for now?” Lily presses, borderline desperate.

“ _Mmh,_ ” she repeats.

Potter looks entirely too thrilled about this; Black (and Marlene, for that matter) remains unresponsive, engrossed in the _Prophet_. Sighing, Lily draws her knees together and braces herself for a longer morning than she had hoped for.

Gradually, the others trickle in. Pettigrew Flooes in around ten, a little before Marlene’s family starts to come out of the woodwork. By the time Lupin appears in the hearth, the little house is bursting at its seams: besides him and the five of them, Marlene’s—count them—parents and four siblings are crammed together in the kitchen across the hall.

“Bit loud in here,” is Lupin’s first comment as he stumbles out of the fire. “I was going to suggest turning on the WWN, but that might not be the _best_ idea…”

He is welcomed by a chorus of greetings and mixed reactions to the idea, culminating in Marlene darting into the kitchen and turning on the Wizarding Wireless Network full-volume. Black and Potter cheer, while the rest of them grumble to themselves.

“Fancy seeing you here, Lily,” Lupin says to Lily after the chaos has somewhat dissipated. “Did Marlene drag you in here without telling you about Prongs first?”

She blushes faintly. “Staying here for the summer, actually—well, until August, anyway.”

“We’ll all be seeing a lot more of you, then?” continues Lupin, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly upward—probably at the notion of keeping Lily Evans in close proximity to the Marauders for a month and a half.

Marlene answers before Lily has the chance. “I’ll see to it that you will,” she cuts in with a self-satisfied smirk. “Budge up, Black, don’t leave Lupe just _standing_ there…”

“But it’s so much healthier for him to be on his feet,” Potter comments, looking a little squashed himself with Pettigrew on the loveseat. Lupin rolls his eyes and perches gingerly on the edge of the couch.

It’s a bit slow going, since Lily doesn’t really fit into their long-established group dynamic. She catches Pettigrew’s occasional empathetic look—she doesn’t mind it, as he looks to be just as out-of-place as she is. When Black decides a while later that it’s time for lunch and everyone parades into the already overcrowded kitchen, she sees Pettigrew fighting his way towards her, but Lupin beats him to the punch.

“You look a little lost,” he provides, falling into step beside her.

She smiles weakly. “Your lot is a handful,” she agrees, understating. “And I only really know Marlene much.”

“Need a diversion to get some fresh air?” Lily blinks uncomprehendingly back at him; he chuckles. “With a prank, I mean. Merlin, and to think that they didn’t make you prefect, not even recognizing a scheme when you’re invited to help with one…”

“Think I’ll pass on the diversion—I don’t want to be rude to Marlene—but thanks for the offer,” she declines awkwardly.

Lupin shakes his head. “I’m still getting you out on the patio for lunch. I’m getting a little claustrophobic myself, and that takes a lot for me.”

“Whatever you say…”

“So passive. Come on, let’s go outdoors,” mutters Lupin, mostly to himself, but he turns to Lily and grins nonetheless.

He opens the sliding door leading out to the deck, and she follows him outside, two of Mrs. McKinnon’s sandwiches in tow. The house may be small, but the neighborhood is cozy, the yard richly floral. There’s no more than a couple meters between any of the trees, and the patch of garden on the side of the house is spilling out of its picket fence. “Nice out here,” she remarks.

“Mum’s big on nature,” interjects Marlene unexpectedly; Lily glances back toward the house and realizes that Marlene’s come out with them—she seems to have spilled out of the overflowing kitchen. Marlene adds over her shoulder to Potter, who’s trying to follow her out, “Stay inside, Jay, you look far too conspicuous to be out here.” To us: “Muggle neighborhood. Keep it in mind while you’re outdoors.”

“Let me guess: Potter’s recent nickname fascination was inspired by you,” Lily suggests to her.

Lupin’s forehead creases in confusion. “What—”

“ _Red_ ,” she intones darkly, glaring in the direction of the house.

Marlene laughs. “He’s been calling her Red all day,” she informs Lupin. “For all our sakes, I’m going to hope it’s just a phase.”

Lily continues to seethe, tearing through her sandwich. “Reckon you passed all your O.W.L.s?” asks Lupin, lowering his voice.

“Hopefully,” says Marlene nervously, through a mouthful of cheese and lettuce. “I know I bombed History of Magic and Arithmancy—why I ever let Alice talk me into Arithmancy is beyond me—but as long as I survived Herbology, I’ll be all right.”

“I love Arithmancy,” Lily pipes up, unbidden. Marlene rolls her eyes. “You want to be an Auror, right?”

“Mmh,” confirms Marlene. “I need five N.E.W.T.s—I’m doing the core classes. You?”

“I want to get in the Department of International Magical Cooperation—but just in case, I want to have a solid background in more than the requirements.”

Marlene shrugs noncommittally—she’s never been too interested in Lily’s History of Magic line of study. “And Lupe?”

They both turn expectantly to Lupin, who blanches. “I’m—not sure yet,” he admits; the girls let him leave it at that.

Lily’s mind is stuck on Marlene’s choice in occupation—and the implications thereof. “So Lupin—”

“You can call me Remus, Lily, Lupin is far too stuffy.”

“Or Lupe,” puts in Marlene thickly (she’s chewing again).

“Or Rem,” Lupin concludes triumphantly.

Lily smiles, even though it’s hard to think of him as anything _but_ Lupin. “Remus, then—did you read about the latest killings?”

Lupin darkens considerably. “You’d have to live in a hole not to; it’s all anyone talks about these days,” he says grimly. “The Muggles are baffled; wizards don’t officially exist in their world, you know. Even Muggle-borns—wiped right out of the government records once they’re enrolled in Hogwarts.”

“You have any Muggle ancestry?”

“My mother,” he affirms. “Dad’s worried sick about her, and it gets scarier every day…”

He breaks off, touches a hand to his forehead, and finishes off his sandwich. Marlene, too, has gone quiet, tracing along the rim of her plate. For only a moment, Lily reflects on what they’re starting to call war—but it reminds her too much that she should have stayed home, so she quickly tosses her napkin on her plate and heads back inside.

The song from earlier—“Moontrimmer”—is playing on the WWN again when she enters the kitchen. Potter catches her eye, and to her surprise, she doesn’t feel the urge to call him out on his immaturity when he yanks Black out of his chair and starts to dance, sneaking glances at Lily all the while.


	2. June 19th

Though they only arrived at the Burrow eleven minutes ago, Lily’s beginning to regret that she agreed to the day’s itinerary.

“You realize that I haven’t so much as sat on a broomstick in five years, yeah?” she tells Marlene warily, careful to keep her voice down, given her company. “How am I supposed to survive against half the Quidditch team members at Hogwarts, including their Captains?”

“Relax,” says Marlene airily, waving hello as Meghan McCormack, Gryffindor Seeker, Side-Along-Apparates onto the premises with her brother, Hufflepuff Chaser Kirley. “It’s not like you’re going to be seriously injured. Jay insists on having you on his team; you know how protective he’s going to be of you.”

Lily shudders—she doesn’t like to think about James Potter _protecting_ her—but looking at the McCormacks, she realizes that she’ll probably need all the help she can get. She stutters at Marlene for a second, then gestures, open-mouthed, to the siblings. “Marlene, _the McCormacks_ just got here. You know, children of Catriona McCormack from _Pride of Portree_? How exactly am I supposed to compete with _them_?”

Marlene just shakes her head at her, smiling. Every summer, the Gryffindor team hosts a series of Quidditch matches with Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, the first of which they’re attending today. Though not a team member herself, Marlene uses her connections with Potter and Black to get into the first few (less serious) games. Lily agreed thoughtlessly to come along, not having realized what a poor match she was for the other invitees—but then, Marlene hadn’t been very articulate about their competitors when she told Lily about the game at five o’clock this morning.

Hence the nervous clench of her stomach as Lily trains her eyes to the ground, grasping her borrowed Shooting Star tightly. Gideon Prewett, the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain, is hosting today’s match, to her growing anxiety: she’s never much liked him or his twin brother, Fabian, troublemakers that they are. She asks Marlene, “Who else is coming, anyway?”

“Er… the Prewetts, obviously, and Jay, and the McCormacks. Black, Eddie Bones, Liz Clearwater; Benjy Fenwick is Seeking with Meg, I think. A few others…” She trails off pensively. “We’ll probably both be Beaters; it’s mostly Chasers coming. You should be grateful; you won’t have to _compete_ , per se, you just whack Bludgers at people from the sidelines.”

“So I can bludgeon myself to death. Perfect,” she mutters, rubbing her temples. “I suppose Potter’s planning on rescuing me?”

“He’ll be grateful for the recognition there, Evans,” says someone behind her. She turns to find Black, his arms crossed and face alight with a smirk. “Never thought you’d turn to him as your knight in shining armor.”

She groans inwardly. “I don’t plan to, Black,” Lily snaps. “If you’ll excuse me.”

She leaves him with Marlene, stepping out of the living room and heading outside. The wind whips at her robes, and she wishes idly that she’d dressed for colder weather. Her, Lily Evans, playing Beater… they _can’t_ be serious. If only Severus knew—no, she’s not going to think about him, not now, not _again_.

“Red?”

She doesn’t bother to correct Potter this time. She’s seen him a bit every day since getting out of school—while out to lunch, at someone’s house, on mornings when he sees fit to drop in—and though she can’t say that she’s fond of the nickname, she’s been learning to live with it. Merlin knows that grudging acceptance is easier than complaining about it every few minutes for hours. “Hey,” she greets him with a sigh, instead of protesting. “Marlene says you’re claiming me?”

“Yeah,” he confirms, closing the storm door behind him and following Lily outside. “Can’t have you endangering yourself for lack of proper training; the other two Chasers will do fine without me for, say, a few seconds every couple minutes, anyway. Care for a walk?”

She shrugs, falling into step beside him as he circles around to the backyard. “You’re sure you _want_ to play with me? I’ll probably end up knocking you out with the bat or something.”

Potter, surprisingly, doesn’t laugh; he just smiles sympathetically and slows his pace. “I consider it an honor to have you on my team, even if it’s just Quidditch, regardless of your experience or lack thereof.” Lily leaves it at that, nodding thoughtfully and pulling her robes tighter. “Cold?”

“A bit,” she confesses. It’s curiously chilly and feels more like November than June, and the wind whips mockingly at their raw, reddening cheeks. “It’s really not that—oh, Potter, you don’t have to…” Before she can refuse, he’s taking off his cloak and draping it around her shoulders. She’s always been tall for a girl, but it still drags a few extra inches on the ground.

“It’s nothing,” insists Potter. “We’ll both warm up once the game starts, anyway. Flying does that to you, even if you’re not doing sixty kilometers per hour. But then, with your Shooting Star…” He eyes the borrowed broom suspiciously.

Lily groans—an awkward, strangled sound that matches her dread. “Is it too late to back out?”

“’Fraid so. You’re here, aren’t you?” Potter says bracingly. He pauses next, watching her with a solemn look in his eyes, and she’s almost afraid of what he’ll say to break the tense silence. “Have you reconsidered my offer at all?”

Lily bites her lip. “Offer?”

“To be friends, I mean.” He stops and shuffles uneasily from foot to foot.

Oh— _that_. “It was less an offer than a plea, don’t you think?” Lily snipes, facing him head-on. He reaches up to rumple his hair, half-blushing (though it might just be the cold), and she softens slightly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

He dismisses, “It’s fine,” the color subsiding from his cheeks. They stand there for a moment, him hoping, her considering. Though Lily can’t claim to like him in the slightest, her hostility is less provoked than usual. She’s learned from Severus not to give second chances too freely, and yet—she never really gave James Potter a chance in the first place. If it weren’t for Sirius’s pranks, would they ever have been at odds?

“Acquaintances,” she decides abruptly. “You’ll just have to work your way up from there.”

His mouth twitches into the ghost of a smile. “I won’t disappoint,” he promises, his expression teetering on the edge of something like determination, but it dissipates as they round the corner, and he just tightens his cloak around her shoulders and bites his lip. “We should head inside,” he suggests quietly when she don’t speak. “Gid’s forming teams before everyone comes out.”

“Yeah,” Lily says passively, “yeah, of course.”

Unsurprisingly, Potter holds the door open for her with a wink and a flourish. She shoves his cloak back at him in return.

“All right,” Gideon Prewett is shouting over the crowded din, “we’re still missing a few people, but we’ve got enough to start teaming off. Elisabeth and I are going to be Captains and Chasers.”

“We should split up the house teams to get a chance to play with each other,” breaks in Elisabeth authoritatively, scanning the room. Her personality matches her role: a sixth year Hufflepuff prefect, Elisabeth has quiet purpose and a commanding presence. “Fabian, James, Sirius, you’re with me; Gideon, you can have Edgar and Meghan.”

Meghan pipes up, “I’m Keeping, not Seeking—blasted Prewetts won’t let me switch positions for the house team. Can’t ever find anyone else short enough to do it, apparently. You’d think, since I’m already a fifth year…” She’s clearly shorter for her age than she likes and can hardly be 150 centimeters, if that, and her squeaky voice only emphasizes her height.

Gideon grins indulgently. “All right, then. Meghan’s our Keeper—we’ve got Benjy and Dirk coming, anyway, so that won’t be a problem. Fabian, you’re Keeping, too?” Fabian nods, a sharp jerk of the head. “You’d better be with me, too, Kirley; don’t want Meghan going soft on you.”

“Right,” consents Kirley from the back corner. He’s tall and gangly on the ground, not at all like a star Chaser, freckled with a bright auburn mop of hair. No one mentions the irony: Fabian is Keeper to Gideon’s Chaser, yet there is virtually no concern for brotherly favoritism. “So we’ve got all our Chasers? Me, Gid, Ed; Liz, James…”

“Still missing one,” says Elisabeth, “but we’ll figure it out later; I’m more concerned that Sirius is the only Beater on either team. Gideon, you have one of the Ravenclaws coming, right? Solveig, probably?”

Nodding, Gideon asks, “Yeah, Bernhardt—do you want her, or…?”

“Red is with us,” Potter interrupts. It’s the first thing he’s said since they reentered the house, and there’s a formidable edge to his voice that neither Gideon nor Elisabeth counters as he (subconsciously?) shuffles a little closer to Lily from behind. “You can have Bernhardt and McKinnon.”

“That settles it, then,” Gideon decides, “and just leaves the Seekers and Liz’s last Chaser. Elisabeth wants to split up houses—Benjy’s Hufflepuff and Dirk’s Ravenclaw, so for Seeking—”

“We get Cresswell and you get Fenwick,” finishes Black. “Whenever they get here, at least. So who’s the last Chaser?”

Gideon hesitates. “I…” There’s a long, uncomfortable pause as Gideon looks expectantly to Fabian, who pales and moves, ever so slightly, closer to the living room wall. There’s a fast flash of something unforgiving in Gideon’s mischievous eyes. “Tell me you didn’t.”

Lily looks between the twins, furrowing her brow. “What—?”

“Careful, Red,” Potter warns, murmuring in her ear. He’s standing almost directly behind her now, leaning in over her shoulder. She shivers at the close contact but doesn’t protest; there’s enough intensity in the room already.

“She’s decent, if you’d just get to know her,” says Fabian feebly. There’s a pleading tone to his defense. “Just because it goes against your _orthodoxy_ —”

“You had to invite your _girlfriend_ ,” scathes Gideon. “I tell you to get in touch with Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, and you go and ask _Dorcas Meadowes_ to come.”

Lily catches on in a rush. Dorcas Meadowes, seventh year, is Captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team and among the most hated of her house—and her relationship with the less noble of the two Prewetts is the biggest romantic scandal at Hogwarts that Lily can remember (disregarding the rumors that surround her own house and year).

“She’s a brilliant Chaser, and you’d do best to respect that today,” Fabian sighs. “I told her seven-thirty; she should be here any minute.”

Gideon rolls his eyes but doesn’t retort, muttering instead about how late everyone is running. Gradually, a low hum of conversation eases its way back into the tiny room. Potter, taking advantage of the moment, tries to wrap his arms around Lily, and she swats him away, but not unkindly. “Still need an explanation?” he asks; dully, she shakes her head.

“Is she really that bad?” she inquires. “I mean, I’ve only seen her in passing, but she seems all right. Conceited, maybe, but so is… half of Gryffindor, really.”

“You mean my half, right?” Potter snickers, then answers, “Well, Gryffindors aren’t tied up in all that pureblood propaganda. Whether Meadowes is a Death Eater in training or not, people are always going to associate her with Voldemort’s war for being in Slytherin. Like it or not…”

They split the room in two, their team versus Gideon’s. Black in particular is furious with Fabian, but Elisabeth is quick to quell the impending dispute. “You’ll have to learn to work cooperatively with her today, Black. Fabian’s right; Meadowes isn’t bad when you get to know her. We’ve done prefect work together before, and she’s never made a crack at me for being Muggle-born.”

Black bristles, but Potter reaches out to restrain him. “Let it go, Padfoot,” he advises. “So…strategy, anyone? We’ll need to be inventive, since all we have are fruits…”

“Speaking of which, I’d better go and charm them now, after what happened when we waited until the game started _last_ summer,” says Fabian, disappearing into the kitchen. “What do you think? A watermelon for the Quaffle, apples for Bludgers, and an apricot Snitch sound good?”

The last four players trickle in over the next quarter hour, and Gideon is quick to start the game, perhaps to avoid any pleasantries with Meadowes. She’s surprisingly inoffensive when Lily meets her: grungy and pale, with a poor complexion, she’s almost polite to her largely Gryffindor company, if not a little downtrodden and shy. Even so, she can’t help but serve as the face of Slytherin House, prefect that she is.

The fruits only crudely resemble their counterparts, but it’s enough to satisfy most of the players. Black keeps close throughout the game, guiding Lily’s arm and advising her about her aim. “Don’t swing so steeply: you’re going to knock yourself off your broom at that angle,” he says constantly. “Aim further out, so it won’t just fly back down to you.”

Persistent as he is, Potter flies over to check on her every few minutes. “All right, Red?” he asks, his smile only widening when she snaps at him to get back in the game before he loses it for them.

While an older Shooting Star is a shoddy broom at best, this one is fairly new and thus competitively fast, though not quite enough that Lily is winded. Oddly enough, her few successful blows are all delivered to opponents, and she’s able to loosely follow the score when not otherwise occupied. Their team maintains a narrow lead for the majority of the game; even to one who knows little about Quidditch, it’s easy to see why Elisabeth is the Hufflepuff Captain. Despite the competition—two of three Chasers are seventh years, she only a sixth year, and a Chaser and the Keeper both have McCormack blood—her strategy, combined with Potter’s input, gives Lily’s team a necessary edge. Meadowes, on the other hand, is not so lucky. Though a team Captain herself, no one, including Elisabeth, seems to appreciate her considerate critiques.

In the end, though, Gideon’s team is victorious when Benjy Fenwick (product of Hufflepuff training) steals the makeshift Snitch. Gideon and Edgar are particularly vocal about the win; Elisabeth remains diplomatic, promptly shaking Gideon’s hand and congratulating Benjy on the catch. “I’ll be in touch,” she promises the Prewetts, leaving Meadowes noticeably out of the discussion. “We’ll definitely do this again sometime. Are you free anytime next week?”

Some of the players—Meadowes, Dirk Cresswell, and the McCormacks—leave soon after, but the rest of us (save the twins, who’ve promised to babysit their sister Molly’s squalling babies, Bill and Charlie) are treated to ice creams at Florean Fortescue’s afterward by Elisabeth. It’s shocking how empty Diagon Alley is, compared to last summer; only a few conversational witches and wizards linger in the street, the rest hurrying to and from their destinations. Florean shakes his head at his loss of business, when asked by Marlene. “It’s nothing like it used to be,” he acknowledges, handing out modest vanilla cones (compliments of Elisabeth’s budget). “Your lot is the first party of any real size I’ve had in weeks.”

They eat outside, since there’s no chance of a hot summer sun to melt their desserts. To Lily’s chagrin, Potter gives her his cloak again the minute they sit down, claiming not to need it and making a public show of its presentation. There are seven others who come, apart from Lily: Marlene, Potter, Elisabeth, Black, Edgar Bones, Benjy Fenwick, and Solveig Bernhardt from Ravenclaw. “Shame Meg couldn’t stay. You all make me feel young,” remarks Edgar, his mouth dripping white within minutes. He is dark, short, and stocky, with a perpetual playful gleam in his eyes and spring in his step.

“There’s that and that widely publicized torch you’re carrying for her,” Benjy teases, his uncut mousy-brown hair windswept in his eyes. Most of the group laughs, Edgar included. “Dirk’s a fifth year, too, you know, but I don’t see you asking for _him_.”

“I hope we make prefect together,” says Edgar wistfully, slurping at his cone. “Me and Meg, I mean. We could do rounds together, maybe.”

Elisabeth speaks up to me from across the table—unfortunately, Lily’s seated next to Potter instead of her. “It’s too bad you didn’t make prefect last year, Lily,” she mentions. “I was so sure you were going to get it.”

“Over Alice Abbott? You know she’s first in the class, right?” questions Marlene skeptically.

From beneath her bright blush, Lily struggles not to shoot Marlene a dirty look. “Thanks, Elisabeth,” she says instead, and promptly bites into her cone. Her academic rivalry with Alice is advertised enough without Marlene’s input, and while Alice is by far the kindest of Lily’s Gryffindor roommates, she’s something of a sore spot for her to discuss.

Sensing tension, Solveig hastens to change the subject. Her hazel eyes are alight and flicker frenetically between her peers. “Who do you think is going to make Heads this year?” she prompts.

“Kingsley Shacklebolt for Head Boy,” Potter replies immediately. “He’s got practically no competition for it. Head Girl’ll be trickier, though; none of the girls stand out quite like Kingsley does with the blokes…”

“ _You_ could get it, Solveig,” suggests Edgar. “You’ve got the grades, and you’re already prefect for Ravenclaw.”

Solveig shrugs. “My guess would be Hestia Jones, personally; I don’t think McGonagall likes me very much, and I’m fairly sure the Deputy Headmistress’s opinion carries a lot of weight for it.”

“Hestia Jones?” Black ponders. “I don’t know if she has the charisma for it. They look for leadership when choosing Heads, you know. Jones is nice, but I don’t know whether people would look up to her, necessarily.”

“By which you mean _you_ wouldn’t look up to her,” sniggers Benjy.

Everyone laughs as Marlene agrees, “Not the best criteria for Headship, seeing as you Marauders don’t exactly look up to anyone, except maybe the Prewetts.”

“And Prongs idolizes Evans, can’t forget that,” smirks Black. At this obvious cue, Potter dramatically clutches at his heart and swoons. In return, Lily merely rolls her eyes and bites back into her cone; in all likelihood, any self-defense would probably backfire in _this_ group.

At Solveig’s prompting, they leave shortly thereafter: even barring the (albeit unlikely) threat of a Death Eater attack, the atmosphere itself in the alley is unsettling. Transportation is something of a problem: they Side-Along-Apparated with Solveig, the only one of them who’s of age, to the Leaky Cauldron, but their destinations are now split. Since she knows where they live, Solveig takes Elisabeth and Benjy home by Side-Along, while the Gryffindors take turns Flooing home with smaller and smaller amounts of Tom’s dwindling supply of powder.

Though the day was unexpectedly painless, it’s still a relief to be back at Marlene’s. “Home at last,” Lily tells herself contentedly after she’s dusted herself off, stretching.

Shockingly enough, she’s not startled when someone answers her from the hearth. “Nice, isn’t it?”

Lily visibly deflates but doesn’t bother turning. “Do you make it a hobby, trying to catch people off guard?”

Potter circles around, looking all too pleased with himself. “Only for you, Red,” he swears, clutching at his heart like before. “Looks like you’re learning to expect it.”

“Yeah, well, compared to Severus, you get to be fairly predictable after a while,” she counters. He only looks hurt for a moment, but hot chagrin boils in her stomach for long after.

“And you’re smiling, too,” persists Potter. “Does this mean I’m growing on you?”

Lily bites her lip to suppress the grin and throws herself onto Marlene’s couch. “How soon will Marlene be back? Were there many people waiting behind you?”

“Oh, no, just her and Padfoot—but I may have convinced them to go out for a few hours and enjoy the nice weather.” He takes a seat beside her and scoots in toward her; Lily pushes him off with an index finger but chooses not to comment on his boldness.

“Since I’m sure they agree it’s a bright and sunny day,” she says dryly.

Potter raises his eyebrows. “What, you haven’t caught on that their little on-again-off-again fling is resurfacing? They’ll take any excuse to get away together, bless them.”

She rests her elbows against the armrest—it’s news to her. “Since when do Black and Marlene have a _fling_?”

“April of our fourth year,” Potter divulges airily. (Lily gets the distinct impression he’s been dying to share this with someone out of the loop for some time now.) “It was inconspicuous enough, at first; it happened right around the time his cousin, er—” He stops for a moment, clearly not wanting to betray Black’s trust. “Well, anyway, it was right after a family matter arose, so whenever he’d sneak off—and believe me, he had the worst excuses for it—we just figured he wanted to be alone. Merlin knows he was always sulking back then, and with good reason, too. He actually pulled it off for a fair few months, since we weren’t checking for him on the…” He breaks off and clears his throat loudly.

“Careful, Potter,” Lily laughs.

Potter cracks an easy smile. “We weren’t checking his stories, wanted to give him privacy—we didn’t have a clue until last October, actually. Moony and Abbott, er, caught them going at it in a broom closet on prefect patrols. Honestly, though, no one ever told you about this? They keep quiet about it, but I figured _someone_ must have mentioned it in your dorm.”

She shakes her head, shrugging. “I’ve always tried to be in the dorm as little as possible until—recently. Besides, Alice isn’t the type to spread that around, and I’m sure Marlene only would have told Mary, if anyone.”

“Doesn’t look like she did, or else word _definitely_ would have circled back to you one way or another,” remarks Potter. She titters a bit; she’s reluctant to insult her roommates, but Mary does have quite the reputation as a gossip. “Would that explain why you didn’t suspect anything when Marlene started disappearing out of the dorm?”

“Pretty much. I mostly stay in the library until curfew, and then the common room until ten or eleven.” Potter shakes his head at her, as if to ask how she lives with herself on a daily basis. “Marlene… er…”

Potter groans suddenly. “She didn’t give you one of her lectures, did she?”

“Lectures?”

“Oh, you know—where she gets all dark and honest with you and tries to guilt you into doing something. She’s famous for those with us, you know,” he appends earnestly.

“She might have,” Lily replies, self-consciously tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “Anyway, she was just talking about how you all have secrets I haven’t got a clue about. Her thing with Black must be one of them.”

Potter blinks at me. “ _You all_? I resemble Marlene McKinnon now?”

Uneasily, Lily generalizes, “I just mean the rest of our year in Gryffindor. You can be fairly intimidating taken together, you know.” When he doesn’t catch on, I continue to ramble, “You’re all so… close-knit, I guess. Rarely seen fewer than four at a time. And your personalities—Mary is shallow and a bit snide, Marlene is haughty and popular, Alice seems sweet but has a competitive side like you wouldn’t _believe_ , Emmeline is quirky and unapproachable. And then you Marauders have this collective reputation, you and Black in particular—top of the class without even trying, Quidditch stars, legendary pranksters, hexing Slytherins and first years alike right and left—”

“ _Lily_ ,” says Potter intently, and she stops for breath, gasping it in.

“Sorry to go off on you like that; don’t know what’s gotten into me lately. This whole thing with Severus has me on edge…” Lily twiddles her thumbs and doesn’t dare meet his eyes.

To her relief, he doesn’t try to tilt up her chin or anything. “First of all, I’m not top of the class; that’s the Ravenclaws’ job, and maybe Abbott’s. Merlin knows how poor my grades are in comparison, except in Transfiguration. Last year, Gryffindor lost the Quidditch _and_ House Cups, in part thanks to both my Chasing and those pranks you think put me on a pedestal, because no matter how invincible I seem to the student body, I’m not to the teachers, especially McGonagall. And I don’t hex first years—Slytherins, yeah, but not underclassmen. That’s Padfoot and Wormtail.” He heaves a sigh and slouches in his seat. “You really think we’re _intimidating_?”

“A bit, yeah,” Lily admits sheepishly, still refusing to look at him. “That’s what happens when you hang around with a Slytherin all the time and then have to room with you lot. I’ve never been in a position to see you all at your… friendliest.”

Potter sighs again. “And here I’ve been wondering what your problem is all year—whether you hate me irrationally or really are that pretentious.”

“ _Pretentious_?”

“You’d think you’d leave the nagging to the prefects, wouldn’t you? Not that Moony does a very convincing job of it—but Abbott, at least,” Potter chides lightheartedly.

Lily’s blush returns, just when she thought it was starting to subside. “That’s what _you_ get for screwing with my then-best friend for five years,” she mumbles. “And I still think you’re unnecessarily arrogant and—and irresponsible and closed-minded and rude and immature and—”

“And here I thought we were beginning to get along,” says Potter under his breath. She breaks off again, wondering whether her coloring has reached maroon yet. “If you think I’m so awful, why are you telling me all this?”

Lily finally looks up. He’s kind but serious in the face, hanging onto her every word. “I don’t know—I don’t have anyone else to tell it to, I guess. I’m not the greatest at making new friends.”

He chuckles. “You do fine at _making_ friends, Red, but your pacing is a little off. You barely said two words to anyone all day, me included, until I show up here and you start sharing all your insecurities…”

“I don’t like large groups of people,” she shrugs.

“I can see that.”

They lapse into silence for a while, just sitting. In the kitchen, one of the McKinnons has turned on the WWN. Lily half listens to the garbled rock, half wonders what exactly she and Potter are doing.

“You honestly think that of me, Red?” Potter finally bursts, his voice cracking at the nickname.

Lily holds his gaze for a long second. “Always,” she says, and his face falls before she goes on, “but it doesn’t matter so much at times like this.”

The brightness returns a little to his eyes. “What matters now?”

Her breath comes out in a shudder. “It’s nice having someone to talk to who—who listens, and who doesn’t judge, even if he is a pigheaded toerag with nothing in common with me.”

It’s a backhanded compliment, but he still glows. “So from now on—”

“Don’t expect us to get like this again,” she warns, crossing her arms.

“It was worth a shot.” Potter grins. “Don’t listen to McKinnon, though. Padfoot rubs off on her too much. Everyone is willing to give you a chance if you’ll let go and just _let_ us, yeah? Start with me—I’m right here, Red, I’ve always been right here.”

Lily smiles weakly. “Thanks, Potter.”

He waves it off, looking down. “I can get going before Marlene comes back. Preserve your dignity and all that.”

She tilts her head, considering. “You know, Potter, I don’t think I’ll mind if you stay,” Lily confides to him, and though she hates to admit it, his answering smile is contagious.


	3. June 22nd

“I still don’t understand how I never knew you have a sister,” Mary’s saying.

They’re out to coffee with Marlene at a café just outside Mary’s neighborhood. Ordinarily, Mary would have preferred Madame Puddifoot’s in Hogsmeade, but she’s been delving more into the Muggle side of life to avoid the negative atmosphere of the magical world that’s been sparked by the threat of Voldemort. This Mary tells Lily, all very fast and with the expectation of an equally chatty reply; Lily may have known her for five years, but not well enough to realize her tendency to over-share with friends. Since Marlene is Mary’s best friend, Lily wonders, does this make Mary her friend by extension, or is she just trying to accept Lily now that Severus is out of the picture?

Lily explains, sighing, “I don’t talk about Tuney that often. We’re not exactly, er, on the best of terms…”

“By which she means Petunia hates her for being a witch,” interjects Marlene loudly, eager to shoot down a girl she didn’t know existed until Lily started staying with her. Lily rolls her eyes, as she’s also beginning to catch on about Marlene; she’s both impassioned and impulsive.

A few people sitting nearby turn their heads at mentions of witchcraft. Mary blushes and looks around at the Muggles, her face bright red, and she hisses out the corner of her mouth, “Not so _loud_! Merlin, Mauve, haven’t you heard of the International Statute of Secrecy before?”

Marlene mumbles an apology, then adds, blinking, “Since when is Mauve one of my nicknames? I mean, Lena or Leigh you’ve used…”

“Oh, I just think it goes, now that Lily’s Red and all,” Mary prattles, her voice back to normal. Lily rolls her eyes again and takes a long swig of her cappuccino. “James was calling her that at Peter’s house the other day.”

Marlene glances, startled, at Lily, then back to Mary. “Pete invited you to his place?” she asks quickly. Mary nods and opens her mouth, about to spit out a litany of details, but Marlene quickly cuts her off: “I just mean, you know, since I hang around with all the Marauders in the summer… plus Black was probably there…”

“Does _she_ know about you and Sirius?” Mary mutters, glancing conspiratorially at Lily.

“Well, _now_ she will,” snaps Marlene, put-out in response to Mary’s bluntness.

Lily smiles faintly and traces the rim of her coffee mug. “It’s all right; I—erm—caught on a couple months back,” she fudges, not wanting to give away Potter’s admission.

Marlene raises her eyebrows; the left one arches past her carefully side-swept bangs. “Did you? I thought we weren’t being obvious…?”

Lily bites her lip. “No, no, you’re not,” she improvises clumsily, “you just, er, catch on to things like that when you live in the dorms. Someone might have said something once or twice, I don’t know, and I just—pieced it together…”

“Probably Mary here,” bites Marlene, sipping her latte. Mary starts indignantly, but Marlene cuts her off before she can defend herself. “Doesn’t matter, I guess, you know anyway. He was there, wasn’t he? Black?” she directs back to Mary, who nods. “He say anything about me?”

“Well, he asked Pete once or twice why you weren’t there—it wasn’t _suspicious_ or anything, he was more, like, casual… but he answered by telling Sirius he could worry about the guest list when it was at _his_ place, and that shut him right up, you know he’d never invite anyone to Grimmauld Place.” Mary stops to draw breath. Lily glances at Marlene, but she’s impassive, waiting for Mary to finish. “I don’t know why Pete was so nasty about it, though. Usually he likes you, and he practically _lives_ for Sirius…”

Marlene raises her coffee to her lips. “Huh,” she says quietly, taking a sip. They sit in silence for a minute, until she continues, “Who else was there, Mare?”

“Oh, um… James and Lupin, of course. And Em,” she lists.

“ _Em_ was there?” Marlene seems about as incredulous as Lily is at the news; while she likes Emmeline Vance (another of their roommates) well enough, her borderline-antisocial tendencies don’t make her the most likely person to spend any time with the _Marauders,_ of all people. “Isn’t she a bit too…”

“No, I know what you mean,” Mary says, swallowing a mouthful of coffee. “She didn’t say, like, _anything_ the entire time…just read some Muggle fantasy novel—I always find those hysterical, don’t you? How far off they are.” At this point, she’s particularly careful to lower her voice, despite her tendency to seem dumb at times. “Anyway, it wasn’t really awkward or anything, she just sat with Lupe the entire time. He kept her company, I guess. Unlike poor _Red_ here, who’s hardly said more today than Em yesterday,” she finishes, looking expectantly to Lily. Lily hides behind the mug again, draining the cappuccino all too fast.

When Marlene doesn’t say anything convenient to draw attention away from her, Lily sighs and shrugs her shoulders. “Just thinking,” she offers by way of explanation.

“About?” Mary demands, for once keeping brief and to the point. Lily mumbles indistinctly and tips the nearly-empty mug back to catch the foamy dregs on her tongue. “What was that? Potter, did you say?”

Marlene latches tight onto the opportunity to grill Lily on the subject. “What’s been going on with you and him lately, anyway?” she demands.

“Nothing!” Lily insists. She figures her pretending-to-drink-coffee jig is up, so she unnecessarily wipes her mouth on a napkin instead.

“I don’t call it nothing, your relationship with the bloke. You’ve been up and down with him since day one—you row with him whenever Snape’s around or comes into the conversation, but the second it’s just Gryffindors, you’re practically _flirting_ with the guy,” accuses Marlene.

At the other end of the table, Mary is grinning coyly. Lily works to keep her temper under control.

“I do not _flirt_ with him, Marlene! _He_ flirts with _me_ , I just don’t bother telling him off for it when Severus isn’t there—oh, don’t look at me like that, you know I don’t hate him as much as you want to _think_ I do. I don’t like him, necessarily, but mostly I just don’t know him, and we’re too different for him to rub me right until I do—”

“So you _want_ to get to know him, then,” suggests Mary, beaming, and continues before Lily can interrupt, “Don’t deny it, Red, Sirius told me yesterday you and James have been attached at the hip at every social event this summer. Everyone knows about, like, how you lashed out at him during O.W.L.s, and it’s never been as bad as that before—and now you’re hanging around him?”

“Just the other day he was at home with you, with nobody else there… you don’t have any weird relationship with Jay we don’t know about, do you?” presses Marlene, watching Lily intently. Mary looks positively delighted by the idea.

“ _No_ ,” Lily asserts, “I just—oh, come on, you all know ruddy well how stressed I get during exams, _especially_ for a subject like Defense. And he’d just asked me out— _asked me out_ , out of the blue, like nothing was wrong—and then Severus called me a _Mudblood_ , for Merlin’s sake! My best friend! I had a right to snap!”

Marlene sighs. “Oh, come off it—he’s not even your friend anymore.”

“Exactly,” Lily emphasizes, “so that takes away my only reason to hate the bloke, now, doesn’t it?”

“So you were just _exaggerating_ when you went off on him like that and told him he makes you sick, _were you_?” says Mary skeptically.

Lily retorts, “I didn’t say I _like_ him, Mary, just that he’s more tolerable now than he used to be. Let it go, yeah?”

They let the subject drop, but Lily can tell from the looks on their faces that they aren’t going to forget it anytime soon. Hastily, she thinks of something to divert their attention. “What did you want to know about Tuney earlier, Mary?” she asks.

“Oh—I just, like, thought it was odd, you know? I know you for five years, and then the first I hear about you even _having_ a sister is that you’re not invited to her wedding.”

“Well, technically, I’m invited—though only because my parents want me there,” Lily says, understating how badly Mum wants her to attend. “But I’m not going to be in it—not as maid of honor, not as a bridesmaid, nothing. I didn’t even get a formal invitation.”

“I told her to go, and to bring Black to get back at her, but she’s not having it,” Marlene tells Mary in an aside.

Lily exhales slowly. “I don’t know… I’ll probably just go. I think Mum might take offense if I don’t, particularly after not telling her in advance that I didn’t intend to come home for the summer,” she decides reluctantly. “But I’m still not bringing Black as my date; he’ll just make it worse for me. Lupin, maybe—he seems all right.”

“Huh,” says Marlene slowly, losing interest in Lily and instead dabbing at her mouth. “You know, we should probably get going—I’m done here. Either of you bring any lipstick that’ll work for me? I forgot mine at home,” she adds, frowning at the red stains on her napkin.

“I don’t wear makeup,” Lily reminds her patiently as Mary rummages through her bag.

Marlene grins. “Right. You really should; some mascara would really make those eyes pop…”

“I _think_ I have one or two that could work here, Mauve,” interjects Mary, holding out a selection as Lily shakes her head and smiles, “but don’t count on it; the pinks I like are far too light for your skin tone.” (Lily stifle a laugh at the irony: Marlene’s complexion may be dark, but after a week of exposure to Muggle tanning beds, Mary’s, though tinted orange from her cosmetics, is even darker.)

They pay—Mary and Lily split the bill, after Marlene realizes she’s forgotten to bring any Muggle bills—and take off to walk back to Mary’s house. Marlene, Lily notices, checks her reflection constantly in shop windows, critically playing with the hem of her skirt as she goes—not in vanity, Lily surmises, but because she’s uncomfortable without her robes. Growing up in a family of brazen wizards, she figures, can make you doubt your ability to not look out of place in the Muggle world.

It’s a nice area, not upscale but cozy, the close buildings no higher than two stories. The cold spell from earlier in the week is beginning to thaw, but a slight breeze remains to tease the leaves of the densely packed trees. It’s cloudy but not entirely overcast out, and shy sunlight warms their arms, which are bashful and exposed without robe sleeves to hide them.

Lily watches her roommates silently (especially in Mary’s case, she can’t quite call them friends yet) as they walk. They pay no mind, carrying between them light conversation about a “scandalous” breakup in their year: apparently, the reasonably sensible Pol Patil had left fellow Ravenclaw Carol Davies for Greta Catchlove, a domestically inclined Hufflepuff. “He’s an idiot for leaving Davies, since honestly, he was better off with her; at least she was an intellectual match for him. Catchlove doesn’t stand a chance,” Mary’s saying when Lily tunes in briefly. “I give it, like, two months at best—he’s going to want to debate politics or something, and she’s going to want his opinion on his favorite flavor of cheese. Mark my words, it’s not going to last long.”

She’s better than she looks, Mary. On her surface behavior alone, mostly negative words come to mind: superficial, materialistic, dumb. And it doesn’t help her case that she certainly looks the part: half-Irish and half-Scottish, her skin would be ghostly and her hair jet-black if not for the tanning and the beach-blonde dye, her Muggle tee and jean skirt reveal far more than is necessary, and she throws a fit whenever she breaks a manicured nail. In particular, no one at Hogwarts knows quite what to make of her speech habits: her “likes” aren’t fitting of her personality. (Not yet, at least: Marlene has always joked that Mary’s the predecessor of a new stereotype.) Time, though, lures one into a sort of fondness for Mary, or at least an understanding. She gossips but never backstabs, can’t keep a secret but doesn’t pretend to, flirts around but never crosses lines, and they’ve all seen her fierce loyalty to her housemates in between the shallow smiles. She isn’t Lily’s first choice for a companion, certainly, and nothing like her former best friend, but she’s not one to underestimate, either.

By the time they reach Mary’s house, the subject has shifted again, this time back to the other Gryffindors. “Have you been in touch with the other girls?” Marlene asks Mary, swiping dark brown hair out of her face. “Alice and Em?”

“I told you already, I just saw Em yesterday at Pete’s,” Mary answers, “though not other than that—you know how she is. I wrote Alice a couple days ago, just about, like, how her summer’s going and things like that, but she hasn’t gotten back to me yet. And I asked whether she wants to hang out sometime this week—I thought we could get the girls together, catch up on what we’ve been doing.”

“We’ve only been out of school for a week. We’ve hardly been up to much, and I doubt they have, either,” Marlene points out, smirking. “Especially Alice.”

Mary tilts her head. “As far as vacations go, maybe not—but there’ve been developments, we all know that.” They both look pointedly to Lily, who sighs. Apparently, there’s no escaping the gossip.

“Just because Potter and I aren’t at each other’s throats every second of every day—”

“Does not mean there haven’t been _developments_ between you two,” finishes Mary smugly (though Lily hadn’t intended to end the sentence _quite_ like that).

“All right, fine,” she gives in for now, recognizing defeat. “How would you describe these— _developments_?”

Marlene launches immediately into a litany. “Well, to start, there’s the fact that you’ve gone from hot-and-cold—well, lukewarm-and-cold, anyway—to just lukewarm, not even the occasional insult. He hangs around and you don’t even mind, you’re _initiating_ conversations with him, and he’s calling you Red.”

Lily blinks. “What does him calling me _Red_ have to do with anything?”

“It has everything to do with everything,” Marlene continues. “It’s practically a term of endearment, and you hardly even _mind_.”

“Believe me, it’s _not_ a term of endearment,” Lily scoffs, all too uncomfortable with the girls’ presumptions.

Mary adds, “Maybe not to you, but he’s probably using it like one. You can’t _not_ realize he’s been carrying around a torch for you since, like, third year.”

There’s a pause as the full statement sinks in—it’s common knowledge around the school, but people rarely talk about it so bluntly, for the sake of both Potter and Lily. Finally, she again diverts their attention: “As if the two of _you_ had nothing to share. Black, Marlene? Cattermole, Mary?”

They flush; she smirks. For the next few hours, at least, she suspects that she’ll be free.

xx

“Coming out of the woodwork, I see, Lily,” says Emmeline when Lily stumbles out of the fire. As it turned out, Alice got back to Mary fairly quickly after all, inviting all of the girls to her house for Friday afternoon brunch. Though her extended family is infamously large—half the Abbotts she meets are so distantly related that she doesn’t recognize them—Alice herself is an only child, and her rather nice house, which is at least double the size of Marlene’s, seems frigid and empty, having only three inhabitants. It’s like none of them ever figured out what to do with the place once they’d bought it.

Bashfully, Lily clambers to her feet and shakes soot out of her hair. “Hello to you, too, Emmeline,” she mutters. Though she likes Emmeline perhaps the best out of the Gryffindor girls—she and Alice are the more authentic of the four, so she’s the default preference given Lily’s academic differences with Alice—Emmeline carries the fewest airs, which can be as unnerving as it is refreshing.

Not ten seconds later, Alice rushes forward from the kitchen, where Lily’s sure she’s been fixing lunch. “Marlene! And hello to you too, Lily,” she greets, with a touch of strained enthusiasm when she says Lily’s name. Though she’s clearly struggling to welcome Lily, the former outsider, she’s quick to engulf the both of them in hasty hugs. Lily catches a mild whiff of something earthy from her straggly blonde hair before Alice lets go and beckons them out of the living room. “Come, come, in the kitchen—Mare and Em were just helping me with some sandwiches and tea—oh, how _have_ you been? I haven’t heard from either of you all summer…”

It occurs to Lily that she’s never before seen Alice outside of school—but then, she realizes a split second later, neither has she seen any of these girls outside of school before this summer. Her holidays have always been spent with Severus, all other communication usually limited to Alice’s occasional polite letter and Potter’s Howlers professing his love (Howlers because he knew Lily wouldn’t read an ordinary letter).

She shakes off the memories and follows Alice into the kitchen, which is just as sterile silver as her living room is blank white. Mary grins at them from her stool, where she’s finishing up a fruit platter at a narrow island. “Could one of you prepare tea?” asks Alice, addressing Lily and Marlene—Emmeline situates herself a suitable distance from Mary at the island and flips open a novel, pointedly exempt from responsibility.

“I can do it,” says Marlene, taking fast initiative. “Lily’s still learning how Wizarding kitchens work.”

“Lucky,” Mary mumbles, accidentally knocking over the top of her arrangement.

Lily chuckles and eases herself onto a stool next to Emmeline, peering over her shoulder. “Good book?” she asks mildly, careful not to get too close—Emmeline can be a bit touchy about personal space. She merely nods and flips the page, not delving into any details as usual. If she’s expecting Lily to ask further questions, she doesn’t comment when Lily doesn’t.

“So, Alice,” says Marlene, putting on a kettle, “what’s this I hear about you and Frank Longbottom?”

Alice turns bright red and stammers something about “prefect duties” and “a very nice bloke.” Apparently, the nagging Lily’s endured about Potter is not an exclusive treatment. All Alice substantially provides, though, is that “I quite like him, really, and I don’t want to ruin the possibility of a date because my mates have me thinking about him constantly, so I’d appreciate it if you’d all let it alone!”

Mary tuts; Marlene rolls her eyes. “Hope you get the date,” Lily says encouragingly, and Alice shoots her a grateful look.

“Thanks, Lily—sandwiches, anyone?”

Lily promptly digs in, mostly for an excuse to keep a full mouth and a low profile, even though she’s not known for her appetite. Conversation bursts the room’s seams, which is surprising for its size but explicable by the occasion: it’s the first time this summer that they’ve all been together under one roof. Mary is quick to ask Alice’s opinion on the Davies-Patil split (“Not that it’s any of my business, but personally, I think it’s a shame it didn’t work out… I’ve always rather liked Pol, actually, and I don’t think he’ll ever be as happy with Greta as he was with Carol, or as he looked to have been, anyway”), and in turn dishes on her budding friendship with Reginald Cattermole (“He’s a change from the sort of bloke I usually date, but you can only put up with the likes of—Gilderoy Lockhart, or—or Davy Gudgeon—for so long before you want something more, and Reg is sweet and, and, honest… and, like, it’s only one date, it’s not the end of the world if we don’t hit it off”). Emmeline, of course, is as complacent with her novel as always, and Marlene remains noticeably quiet, probably to divert attention from her own semi-secretive love life.

Only once is the Potter issue raised. Oddly enough, Alice is the one to address it—“So Mary was telling me earlier that you and Potter are starting to hit it off, Lily?”—but Lily’s determination to _not_ discuss him increases when Emmeline sneaks a sideways glance at her from behind her book.

“Consequence of seeing him daily since we got out of school,” Lily explains away. “He’s probably lamenting my absence right now—told me yesterday he’d write me tonight so as not to break the habit of knowing how my day is going. Once school starts back up, it’ll probably blow over.”

“Last time you talked to him at school, he asked you out,” Alice reminds her unnecessarily.

Lily retorts, “Last time I talked to _you_ at school, Frank Longbottom interrupted before I could say anything significant.”

Alice quickly drains her tea and drops the matter without another word.

“I’m thinking of buying a Kneazle,” announces Emmeline without lifting her eyes from the page. Mary raises her eyebrows, but the rest of them take the comment in stride—Emmeline is prone to abrupt comments.

“Well, you’ll need a license for that.” Alice is the first to respond, ever the realist.

Lily sets down her sandwich (or what little remains of it). “On that note, I’m thinking of buying a cat—could be a good idea to get them at the same time, Em; they’ll be able to keep each other company while we’re in class. Do any of you have cat allergies?” A flurry of negations and shaken heads ensues. “All right, then—we can do our school shopping together, head down to the Menagerie.”

“We should all do our shopping together,” suggests Marlene. “Lily’s staying with me anyway, and we barely ever get together like this often…”

Alice nods her approval. “Should we go right after O.W.L. results come out? Since I don’t know how long Lily will be staying with you…?” The subtle implication is that I wouldn’t be invited otherwise—that I’m the pesky tagalong to a tradition—but at least no one objects outright to my presence, though that may be mostly due to politeness.

“When _do_ results come out—anyone know?” Mary asks.

“Er… sometime in July; the exact week varies from year to year,” figures Marlene. “I’ll owl you all about it when we get them, yeah? How d’you reckon you lot did?”

Alice moans and slouches in her stool, resting her head in her hands. “They were awful. Positively _awful_ ,” she bemoans. “Oh, I’m sure I failed Arithmancy, and don’t even get me _started_ on Defense Against the Dark Arts…”

“Please. _I_ failed Arithmancy, _you_ aced them all,” accuses Marlene. “You’re going to be an Auror, too, right? So we’ll need Potions, Transfiguration, Herbology, Charms, and Defense Against the Dark Arts, at least…”

“I hope I got through Care of Magical Creatures all right. I’m sure I _passed_ , but I want at least an E in it,” Mary worries. “I mean, since I’m going into wizarding naturalism… Herbology was a piece of cake, though.”

Marlene moans, “Oh, Merlin, _Herbology_ ,” and emulates Alice, burying her face in her arms.

Mary looks curiously to Emmeline and Lily, but neither of them bothers to voice their woes; Emmeline is again engrossed in the book, and Lily would rather not discuss her academics in front of Alice.

A resulting beat ensues, then Alice muses, “It’s strange, going to Diagon Alley, isn’t it? The place is practically empty nowadays… it used to be so crowded back in our first year.”

Affirms Emmeline: “The Dark Lord takes his toll.”

There’s a brief pause as they chew on her words, followed by an immediate bout of nervous laughter and forced conversation to shake them off. There’s a small scuffle between Alice and Marlene when the latter insists that we all help her clean up, but for the remainder of the day, the mood only somewhat lightens.

As expected, when Lily and Marlene Floo back to the McKinnons’, waiting for them is a haughty-looking long-eared owl that Lily instantly recognizes. “Potter,” Lily says under her breath, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as she accepts the letter in its outstretched talons.

_Red—_

_Hope you’ve enjoyed your day. Padfoot’s been over since noon, which has been an absolute joyride—he’s bought a motorbike and is trying to charm it to fly, so you can imagine how that’s going. Wormtail says he’ll do my eulogy if I have to test-drive the thing._

_I long for you desperately and think you’re divine. Padfoot says hullo._

— _James_

Lily scribbles her reply and sends it on its way: _Potter—my day was fine; Mary Macdonald probably wants to know what you think of Patil and Catchlove, and Emmeline Vance is apparently getting a Kneazle. Thanks for not sending a Howler. Don’t off yourself on the bike, not that I’d care if you did, and don’t hold your breath, I’ll see you tomorrow at Lupin’s—Evans_.

She meets Marlene in her room, where she’s reading again; she looks to be close to the end of the romance from earlier. “Interesting ending?” Lily asks, plopping down next to her, cross-legged.

Marlene sticks in a bookmark and pulls off her reading glasses. “I guess. How’s Jay?”

“He and Black are trying to make a motorcycle fly,” Lily says darkly (Marlene shakes her head and sighs), conveniently neglecting to mention his parting words. “Anything interesting planned in the next week or so?”

“My birthday’s on the 29th,” says Marlene casually.

Lily’s taken aback. “Why didn’t you _tell_ me? Now I haven’t gotten you anything…”

She smiles, but it’s halfhearted. “It’s all right; just get a card or something next time I’m not looking. Anyway, we’re spending the day at my dad’s, if that’s all right.”

Once again, Lily is floored. “But—your parents aren’t divorced.”

“It’s kind of a long story…” She maintains her gaze, and Marlene slouches in defeat. “Fine. Well—obviously, Neil’s not my father. He and Mum were together at Hogwarts and got engaged right out of school—but Mum thought they were rushing it and got cold feet, and the engagement fell apart for a few months. They got back together, of course—Neil made some corny gesture that Mum completely fell for—and they got married soon after when they found out Mum was pregnant. They figured they just hadn’t been careful enough before they broke up… Neil didn’t realize Mum had had a fling during the separation until I was born two months later than would have been possible, were he the father.”

Lily doesn’t answer, at first. Marlene’s no longer looking at her, eyes trained fixedly a spot a few centimeters to Lily’s left, but otherwise doesn’t look affected by the confession. “I—er—I mean, I’m not _sorry_ , but—”

“It’s awkward, I know.” She laughs, but it comes off as more of a bark than anything. “It’s not very classy, being the illegitimate child—and it’s a huge disgrace in wizarding culture. Mum hasn’t told anyone but Neil and my siblings, and they’re all sworn to secrecy on it—the only others who know are you and Mare. And Doc, of course.”

“Doc?”

“My dad. Caradoc Dearborn—Doc for short.” Marlene looks at Lily, finally, but it feels more like she’s looking through her. “Muggle-born. Auror. Nobody knows I’m a half-blood, either, since I was raised pureblood.”

Lily’s starting to realize what Marlene meant when she said the other Gryffindors have secrets. “What’s he like?”

“Oh, he’s all right,” admits Marlene, laughing again (but this time, it sounds authentic). “My problem is with Mum, not with Doc. Doc’s a good guy—didn’t know about Neil or anything until he got an owl saying he had a daughter. Mum didn’t want him to be able to see me, but Neil convinced her that I deserve to know my father, so I always spend my birthday with him and stay at his flat for Christmas. Sometimes I don’t see him much, if there’s an emergency, but he’s great when he’s around. He’ll like you, I’m sure.”

A rapping on the window interrupts her. “Potter’s owl again,” Lily mutters, crossing the room and letting it in. His letter is simple: _Red—Padfoot says that Catchlove’s a brilliant kisser, so I reckon Patil’s got the right idea about her. See you tomorrow—James_. “This’ll just take a minute,” she promises Marlene, and she flips his parchment over and scrambles for a quill.

_Potter—can I ask a favor of you?_


	4. June 28th

The doorbell rings, spurring a flurry of activity. Marlene squeals and adds a final dab of gloss to Lily’s lips with a grandiose flourish and unhidden enthusiasm. Lily smiles timidly and rushes to the door, pushed faster down the hall by her companion all the while. Straightening her blouse, Lily reaches for the handle and finds herself face-to-face with one James Potter, who’s leaning in the doorway and twiddling a lily in his fingers.

“A lily for the flower,” he says in lieu of a greeting, stretching out his hand. She accepts it, blushing and mumbling a polite word of thanks. “Now, do I have to stay and say hullo to the family, too, or d’you want to get out of here?”

“Oh, go on ahead, you two,” insists Marlene, positively beaming at him. “I’ll see you in a few hours, Lily?”

She nods, carefully training her eyes to Potter’s. “Bye, then,” she say breathily, taking his free hand as he helps her onto the porch. They both give Marlene a wave as she closes the door—and promptly drop the act.

“You _had_ to give me a lily.” She rounds on him, brandishing the flower and prodding him in the chest with the stem. “A _lily_. Could you be _any_ more cliché?”

He grins, as though Lily’s just thanked him profusely for it, and tugs the thing out of her fingers, breaking off the bulk of the stem and tucking the remainder in her hair. “I thought it appropriate. Should I make note of an alternative floral preference for our second date?”

Lily corrects him, glaring (and hoping he hasn’t been taking her invitation the wrong way), “You mean, for our first _real_ date— _if_ you ever get one, that is, which I doubt after this. Do you not think I can hop a step on my own, either? What kind of a 1950s chauvinist _are_ you?”

“Oh, Red, you applied makeup for me,” continues Potter obliviously, wiping away an imaginary tear. “I’m touched.”

“I’d charm it off if we could use magic outside of school,” Lily says bitterly. “How’d you get here without Flooing, anyway?”

He finally meets her in the real world, dropping his own dreamy smile. “Don’t remind me. I had to walk four blocks from the nearest Wizarding fireplace so I could show up at the doorstep; I thought it would be more believable if I came off as a hopeless romantic.”

“You shouldn’t have tried to display _me_ as one,” she maintains, pulling her hair out of whatever updo Marlene fashioned for it and letting it hang in a simple ponytail (lily intact). “And then I can’t tell you off when I’m pretending to _like_ you.”

“Ah, well, I think she bought it—you’ll want to pick up the pace, _you_ have to go all four blocks now, too,” Potter adds, and Lily accelerates from a stroll to a brisk walk. “Why’d you need me as your fake date, anyway?” he inquires after a minute.

“What, didn’t I tell you? Marlene’s birthday is tomorrow, and she didn’t tell me until three days ago—I need an excuse to get her something. It’d look suspicious otherwise, since I’m staying with her and we’re supposed to go everywhere together,” she fills him in, shrugging.

Potter chuckles. “And you chose _me_ as your date? I’d think Moony’s more your type.”

“Yes, well, she and Mary are convinced we’re in love; no need to persuade them that Lupin wants to compete for my affections,” Lily teases. “You’re the more believable choice.”

“Huh. So a goodbye kiss is out of the question, then?” She smacks him across the chest. “Relax, Red, I was only joking… So do you want Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley?”

Lily contemplates for a moment. “Hogsmeade, I think—for Scrivenshaft’s. Flourish and Blott’s wouldn’t have cards, would they?”

He shakes his head. “Hogsmeade it is, then—we can Floo into Honeydukes.”

Disgruntled, she asks (rhetorically), “You’re _sure_ it was four blocks away?”

Potter doesn’t reply, merely sweeps her into his arms. Lily swats at him, indignant but laughing all the while.

The war doesn’t appear to have affected business at Honeydukes. The shop is as crowded as ever when she and Potter stumble out of its fireplace, shaking their clothes free of soot. “Looks like your makeup is ruined,” he sniggers, and Lily brushes her cheek with two fingers and pull them away to see just as much rouge as black. She meets his eyes, and he wordlessly passes her a handkerchief.

“Thank Merlin,” she laughs. “I’ll just be a minute; I should go clean up in the loo…”

Five minutes and one raw-scrubbed face later, she emerges from the restroom to find her “date” perusing a shelf of sugar quills. “And I thought you were supposed to be a Marauder,” she greets him, grinning; he doesn’t bother turning around. “These are the oldest trick in the book.”

“Can’t be innovative if you don’t know the basics,” Potter retorts, grabbing a handful. “Reckon McKinnon will want anything here?”

“Maybe,” Lily fathoms—to be perfectly honest, she doesn’t know Marlene well enough to buy her anything too personal. “Does she have any nut allergies that you know of?” He shakes his head. “She like caramel or plain chocolate?”

It takes only ten minutes to buy Marlene a sampling of chocolate flavors—but Potter takes nearly an hour after that to browse the new merchandise. “You’re like an overenthusiastic six-year-old,” Lily chides playfully as they leave—though he’s bought nothing but the quills. “The epitome of a kid in a candy store, except you’re almost of age.”

“What can I say?” He grins and drapes an arm around her. “I just like to bring out my inner youth.”

They head up the street to Scrivenshaft’s, Potter’s arm still around her (much to her chagrin). Its business starkly contrasts Honeydukes’s; when they enter, they’re the only customers in the shop. The manager ambles over to greet them from behind the desk, where he leaves behind a tattered book upside-down to mark his place. “Anything I can get for you fellows?” he drawls.

“Do you carry cards here?” she begins to ask, but Potter interrupts.

“Where do you keep your stationery?” The manager pays heed to him, not Lily (perhaps because Potter sounds so much more assertive) and points his thumb behind him and to the left. “Thanks,” Potter adds, winking, and steers Lily in the indicated direction.

She rolls her eyes. “I’m writing a birthday card, not a _letter_ , Potter.”

“Ah, but she’ll like it better if it’s personal—and those sayings in most cards are a cop-out,” chides Potter.

“You’re rather reluctant to let me make my own decisions today, aren’t you?” Lily snaps, scanning the shelves for something tasteful.

Potter shrugs. “Occupational hazard of playing your boyfriend.”

She sighs. “You’re _not_ my boyfriend.”

“You say that now…”

Though she’s tempted to stalk off and get a card herself, she eventually settles on a simple cream parchment with a baby-blue border. “So inconvenient that they’re packaged by tens,” Lily grumbles. “Would’ve saved a few Sickles just to get a card—”

Potter is quick to present a handful of Sickles to her. She pulls back and puts up her hands, insisting, “Oh, Potter, that’s really not necessary…”

“I made you buy stationery; it’s only fair that I pay the difference. My allowance is too big for me, anyway: I’ll barely notice after this, I swear.”

With an exasperated sigh, she takes five Sickles out of the mound in his palm and thanks him quickly, neglecting to mention that he’s saved her the embarrassment of having to pick out something less expensive. When she exchanged her pounds for Galleons last summer, she hadn’t realized that her budget would have to cover half this summer, too.

She pays up front and borrows Potter’s quill to write something to Marlene, soon finding herself at an utter loss for words. “What am I supposed to write when I’ve only been hanging around her for two weeks?” Lily groans, mostly to herself.

“Wish her happy birthday, thank her for opening her home to you, tell her you’ve enjoyed getting to know her…” rattles Potter. She calls him a smart aleck under her breath, but still, she’s grateful for the ideas. “Just make sure you say it in your words, not mine,” he mentions as she struggles to control her (usually atrocious) handwriting.

“Right, like I’d ever want to sound like you,” she mutters, but she makes sure he notices her forgiving smile.

Letter done, Lily suggests that they Floo back from Honeydukes again, but Potter stops her, a bright look in his eyes. “Why not head to The Three Broomsticks for a quick butterbeer?” he invites. “On me. We’ve got to stay long enough to look like we’re on a date, you know, and it can’t have been more than an hour already.”

Checking her watch, Lily notices that they’ve been here for an hour and a half already—but they’ve got to stay probably at least another hour to make it appear believable, so with nothing to lose, she takes him up on the offer. The pub is as convivial as ever, and Potter flatters Madam Rosmerta just as Lily expected. “Butterbeers for myself and the flower,” he requests with a debonair grin, and Rosmerta winks at him before sauntering off to get them.

“I’m not a flower,” Lily gripes.

He brushes a few stray hairs behind her ear and secures the lily in place in her loose ponytail. “Of course not, Red, you’re a color,” he agrees, like it’s the most natural conclusion in the world. He takes her cheek in his hand but lets go quickly at the look on her face. “Oh, before I forget to ask, have you and Marlene made any plans as far ahead as a week from Wednesday? July 7th.”

“I don’t think so,” Lily says, shaking her head. “Anything you had planned?”

“I have concert tickets—The Peverells.” Her eyebrows crease in a frown: he’s not trying to take her on a proper date, is he? Potter misunderstands, though, and unnecessarily reminds me, “‘Moontrimmer?’ Honestly, Red, how could you forget _our song_?”

“We don’t have a song,” she reminds him blandly. “How many tickets?”

A slight blush rises in his cheeks. “My dad knows their manager.”

Lily gapes at him, realizing. “Are you _joking_? Unlimited free tickets?”

“They’re not _free_ , Red, they’re just… heavily discounted,” says Potter hastily, his blush darkening. She beams. “I was only going to bring the guys, but I thought you and Marlene might like to come…”

“We’d love to come,” she accepts immediately.

He smiles bashfully and ruffles his hair. “It’s not until ten o’clock, and it’ll be at least a couple hours, so I was thinking we could all make a night of it at my place. I don’t think—have you ever been to my house before?” Lily shakes her head. “All right—well, Marlene will know how to get there. Bring a change of clothes, and meet me there at eight, all right?”

Rosmerta comes back with their drinks as Lily nods her agreement. The next hour henceforth passes uneventfully, full of their usual banter, before they prepare to leave. She tucks Marlene’s gift and an envelope from Potter—two concert tickets and a “many happy returns of the day” note included—into the handbag that Marlene forced Lily to bring for the occasion.

To prevent the four-block walk, they Floo straight back to Marlene’s this time, and Lily puts on the dreamiest face she can muster. “Bye, love,” says Potter affectionately in parting, and Lily can tell that only the warning in her eyes is stopping him from adding a peck on the cheek.

Quickly, before the McKinnons realize they’re back, she tells him, “Thanks for doing this for me today, Potter.” He smiles and tips his head to me, and then he’s back in the hearth and out of sight.

When she finds Marlene again, Marlene beats her to the punch. “Did you make any further plans?” she asks impatiently, and Lily shakes her head, trying to look appropriately disappointed but hopeful. “Make sure you do,” she advises, “and let your guard down more next time. You know, Lily, usually, I never see you more alive than when you’re with him.”

She doesn’t answer, wondering why Marlene’s claim doesn’t sound that far off from the truth.

xx

Lily’s not quite prepared to face the entire McKinnon family when she stumbles, bleary-eyed and frizzy-haired, upon all seven of them at nine o’clock in the morning. Though she’s staying in their house, she’s had precious little interaction with anyone but Marlene for the past two weeks. Her parents have told Lily that they respect Marlene’s friends’ privacy, and her siblings, from the looks of it, get out of the house as much as Marlene does and otherwise keep to themselves.

Uncomfortably, she tugs down her too-small nightshirt and cracks an unconvincing smile. “I can come back,” she offers rather awkwardly. On second thought, it probably would have been wise to get her cereal fix _after_ getting dressed, in case something like this happened.

The McKinnons seem to have other ideas, however. “Oh, no, don’t be ridiculous, Lily. You’re a guest in our house and perfectly within your rights to eat breakfast whenever you choose,” hastens Mrs. McKinnon, pulling up a chair as she speaks. “We were just giving Marlene her gifts—you’re welcome to join us.”

“Gifts?” Lily smiles—wider than usual in this house, even tired as she is—looking straight at Marlene. “In _that_ case, I do think I’ll be right back…”

She dashes into their shared bedroom and rummages through her trunk for the bag from yesterday. Finding it, she unceremoniously dumps out the gift-wrapped assortment of chocolates and cards (well, letters, really) from herself and Potter. Before she braves the kitchen again, though, she dons her (modest) robe and runs a brush, albeit in vain, through her hair. It’s worth the extra few seconds.

She gathers the gifts in her arms and hurries back into the kitchen, cutting Marlene off before she can protest. “Happy birthday—and don’t tell me I shouldn’t have.”

She blushes, unwrapping the chocolate first. “Thanks, Lily—when were you in Honeydukes, of all places?”

“Come on, Marlene, did you honestly believe I was on a date with Potter yesterday?” Lily reaches out to stop her when Marlene mistakenly grabs Potter’s letter instead of Lily’s. “The other one first.”

“So I shouldn’t have owled Mary about you coming to your senses?” Lily shakes her head, grinning, and Marlene’s voice falls as she starts to read. “Bollocks… with her mouth, the whole school’s going to think you two are an item by September…” Lily’s distantly concerned about just how many people will have the wrong idea about her and Potter come September first, but she pushes it out of her mind for the time being.

Two of Marlene’s siblings, Margaret and Michael, begin to snigger uncontrollably. Lily rolls her eyes pointedly in their direction, sparking giggles from the two youngest, Matthew and Meredith. “Behave yourselves,” warns Mr. McKinnon, but his wife is smiling at Lily.

“Don’t mind them—you know how children get,” Mrs. McKinnon says patiently. “Matthew’s going to be a first year in September; from what I gather, Professor McGonagall is dreading his arrival.”

Lily smiles back politely as Marlene refolds her letter. “Thanks, Lily—I’m glad you’re staying with me, too.” They share a rare moment before she adds, “What’s the second letter for?”

“From Potter—he gave it to me when I saw him yesterday.”

“Black enclose anything?” she asks, quieter now. Lily shakes her head, but Marlene’s disappointed look only lasts a moment before she tears open the envelope. As the concert tickets fall into her lap, she drowns out her siblings’ conversations with excited screams. He’s the closer friend, giving her the more extravagant present, but Lily still feels a pang of something like hurt at Marlene’s decidedly more enthusiastic reaction to Potter’s gift.

They leave soon after, once they’ve had a chance to eat and change. Lily takes a while to clean up in the bathroom first; she had no clue how to properly remove all the makeup last night, so she enlists Marlene’s help in washing off the remnants today. “Remember what I said with Mary about how mascara could do you good?” Lily nods, at which Marlene scolds her for almost getting makeup remover in her eyes. “I retract that.”

“Glad to hear it,” Lily says, laughing, though this time she’s careful not to move her head.

They Floo to Doc’s flat; Lily’s getting so used to Floo powder that she barely notices the dizziness anymore, she realizes as she’s straightening up. The place is your typical bachelor pad—mismatched and minimal furniture, with sparse clutter and excess junk. The couch and a patch of the coffee table are tidy, though, suggesting that he’s at least _tried_ to clean the place up for them; it’s hard to judge just how much effort he put into it, though, since Lily can’t be sure how dirty he usually is.

“Marbles!” Marlene’s father speaks in a smooth, low voice, and Marlene is clearly ecstatic to see him. “Happy birthday, honey. And you must be Lily?”

“Lily Evans,” she confirms, giving them a moment to embrace. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Dearborn.”

Doc sighs—rather histrionically, she might add. “Nonsense. Call me Doc; everyone does. Or at _least_ Caradoc, if you’re fond of formalities.”

“If you insist, Mr. Dearborn.”

He laughs (a great belly laugh that rumbles across the room and brings a smile to Marlene’s eyes) and waves them away from the hearth. “Come on in, you two; don’t be shy. Make yourselves at home.”

Doc doesn’t seem to be one for small talk. He skips the formalities and sneaks his conversations in between his actions; he’s less concerned with how his daughter’s year has been than how her birthday will be, and as such, he doesn’t ask how they’ve been but how they are. His novel honesty is becoming, and Lily’s decidedly a fan of it just a few minutes into the occasion.

Since Lily and Marlene can’t use their wands during the holidays, he insists upon doing everything without magic, too, sometimes going out of his way to find the blatantly Muggle way. Instead of salad or sandwiches for lunch, Doc chooses reheated soup with homemade smoothies for dessert; as such, after they eat, cleanup involves wiping broth off of the stovetop and fruity vanilla ice cream off of the cabinets. “I tell you, these things weren’t available when I was growing up,” he defends (though neither Lily nor Marlene is accusing him), scrutinizing his blender. “I _told_ my sister she shouldn’t have gotten it for me, that something like this would happen, but she insisted that the technology was too fascinating to let it slip by…”

“You _must’ve_ had a stove growing up, though, Doc,” doubts Marlene, grinning at Lily as she wrings out her rag in the sink and sets it to the counter for a fresh attack. “I mean, the blender is one thing…”

He shrugs helplessly. Lily asks, mopping a pink glob off of the refrigerator, “How in touch with the Muggle world do you stay? A fair bit, of course, since your flat is Muggle, and then you still talk to family…”

“You’re Muggle-born, Lils?” She nods—Doc was quick to adopt a pet name for her. “I keep up with Muggle culture, since I run into them where I live pretty often and I’ve got to look natural. But as far as close Muggle ties go—only my parents and sisters know about magic, because of the Statute of Secrecy, so I don’t have Muggle friends apart from them. It’s one thing to say hello to the woman in the flat next to yours, quite another to invite her into _your_ flat for afternoon tea when you haven’t the faintest idea how to use a kettle without the help of charms. I don’t know some witches and wizards do it, marrying Muggles—since by law, you can’t reveal yourself for what you are until after the wedding. Not only do you have to cover most aspects of your life up while dating, but you have to win back the trust of your spouse after… it’s a huge breach of trust, hiding something like that from your loved one.”

“Huh,” Lily muses. “You said you only keep in touch with immediate family?”

Doc purses his lips sympathetically. “Big extended family? That’s always a toughie—I write to my cousins to stay in touch and call occasionally, but you’ve got to be careful about how much they know about you. Most Muggles wouldn’t believe you if you told them you were a witch, but you don’t want your family thinking you’re crazy if they realize there’s something up. I tell them about my friends and coworkers, but they probably think I’m a bit shady; none of them know exactly where I work, or where I live, for that matter.”

“Do you see your cousins at all?” Lily follows up, carefully training her eyes to her work. Her stomach is suddenly churning (and not from the soup, however old): neither Doc nor Marlene needs to know that Lily has sixteen cousins, or that it already kills her not to tell them about Hogwarts.

“Sometimes—always at their places,” admits Doc. “But never for too long, since you’re watching your tongue all the time. I’m sure you know all about this already, from family gatherings these last five years?” She nods again. “Again, you don’t have to completely cut yourself off from them, but you have to be careful not to get so close that they realize anything’s amiss. Aren’t you glad you were raised in wizarding families, Marbles? Saves you the heartache of so much secrecy,” he adds offhand to Marlene, who looks to be following the exchange avidly. Lily is surprised at how callously he talks about their family situation—in Marlene’s place, Lily would be fairly uncomfortable keeping that wound open.

“Bit disorienting, knowing I have this whole other family that doesn’t know about me,” she says gruffly. “I mean, what would I talk to them about if I met them? I could never pass as a Muggle. All I ever talk about are O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s, Quidditch, getting my Apparition license, the war…”

“Surely I haven’t raised _that_ one-dimensional a daughter,” Doc cries, flicking water from his towel at her.

Marlene squeals and ducks, nearly toppling into Lily. “You forget, Doc, that Mum and Neil raised me—I only live with you, what, two percent of the time?”

“They must be doing a wretched job of it for the other ninety-eight,” he replies darkly, shaking his head and setting back to work. “Are the other four complete brats without my influence? Merlin, I haven’t seen Maggie since long before she got into Hogwarts—I’ve never seen Matt or Mer out of diapers!”

Marlene’s laugh rings out purer than it ever has in the dorms. “Mike’s shaping up to be a little bit of a troublemaker—McGonagall’s afraid of Matt coming to Hogwarts because of him, and Mike’s only going into his third year, you know. Mer’s a little angel, of course, but don’t even get me _started_ on Maggie, she and Mike make quite the pair…”

They go on for a while, until the kitchen’s cleaned up and they’ve retreated to the living room. Doc’s trying to light a fire with a Muggle lighter—and failing, to a large extent, especially since he initially sets fire to a bit of leftover Floo powder—and Lily’s just starting to feel comfortable when he freezes, dropping the lighter into the hearth. “ _Bollocks_ ,” he curses, straightening up and whipping out his wand. “I’m sorry, Marbles, but I have to take this—it’s Dumbledore, he sent out the highest alarm—I’ll be back as soon as I can, all right? I’m so sorry—”

His Disapparating crack resonates through the room and is shortly followed by Marlene’s breathy sigh. “Of course. _Dumbledore_.” Lily raises an eyebrow, and Marlene explains moodily, “It’s not Auror work, I don’t know much about it—some kind of renegade program fighting the Dark Arts. The Ministry’s too corrupt and _politically correct_ to do it properly, and my father just had to be one of the ones to take matters into their own hands…”

“Hey.” Marlene looks up at Lily, the faintest red rimming her irises, and Lily says, “He can’t help it if there’s an emergency. Why not invite a few friends over? Wait it out with them. Or just go back to your mum’s, if you prefer—”

“Mum doesn’t know about the program,” she says sharply. “Knowing Doc, he’ll stay after whatever crisis there is and help the Healers… it could be two, three in the morning by the time he’s back. _If_ he’s back.”

Lily realizes from her tone of voice that this “program” is more serious than she had expected—and that sleeping it off is out of the question. “I—I’ll owl Potter,” she offers, looking for parchment. “See if he knows where Black is—”

“ _No_!” barks Marlene abruptly, stock-still. Lily sits back down, and Marlene loosens a little. “No,” she repeats, much softer this time. “Just you.”

Lily offers a weak half-smile. “You know,” she confides after a pause, “whenever the _Prophet_ reports on an attack, I wonder how long it’ll be before I see Severus’ name in print.”

Marlene shoots her a look that’s almost sympathetic. “Whenever there’s an attack, I wonder whether Black’s family were involved before I wonder whether Doc’s all right—how sick is that?”

“It’s not sick,” Lily says. “You care about both of them, but you see Black much more than—”

“So it’s perfectly normal that I worry more about the bloke I’m shagging than the bloke who raised me,” she proposes bluntly.

Lily doesn’t point out that Marlene herself said hours ago that Doc hadn’t raised her. “I should hope that you care about the bloke you’re sleeping with,” she mutters—to her chagrin, she receives no response. “Why _are_ you sleeping with him?”

“Convenience? Desire?” She laughs shrilly and wrings her hands together. “I don’t even remember why it started—I know why it did for _him_ , at least. He’d just found out that his cousin Bellatrix had become a Death Eater—that’s what they’re calling his followers, you know, Death Eaters—and I found him in a right state in the library—the library, of all places, Lily, come on. And I asked what was wrong and he just—he _grabbed_ me and…”

Lily gives her a moment, absorbing the news (and hoping that she’ll still be able to study with a clear head in the Hogwarts library from now on). “Why’d you kiss him back?”

Marlene cracks a bitter grin. “It was right after Easter break. I love my brothers and sisters, Neil’s wonderful, but Mum and I have our ups and downs—we were on a down that holiday. And no matter how hard they try to make me fit in at home… and to come back to school after a week of that and suddenly have this warm body there that wants you is…” She gives a ragged sigh and slouches. “I break it off when times are good, but he always comes back. I think—we both need him to come back.”

Lily wants to advise her to fix it or end it, but they’re not yet in a place where Marlene would heed her advice. So she pays back her confidence: “Have I ever told you that I think it’s Severus’s fault my sister hates me?”

They talk like this well into the night, well past midnight, well past any last chance of _not_ getting to know each other, since Marlene insists on waiting up for Doc. By the time Lily drifts off to sleep, Marlene is still slumped on the couch, eyes wide open and looking numbly ahead.


	5. June 30th

Lily follows Marlene’s example when she doesn’t bring up her birthday again. That’s not to say that the subject isn’t broached with others; indeed, Marlene seems insistent to act as though everything had been normal, as though Doc hadn’t rushed off to fight barely an hour after lunch and left the two girls alone. When they return to the McKinnon household the next day (Lily don’t see Doc at all; Marlene tells her when she wakes her that he’d left for work already), Marlene’s family doesn’t seem surprised that she doesn’t discuss the day in great detail, and her reply owls to birthday wishes from the other Gryffindors read lightly from Lily’s vantage point over her shoulder. Only perceptive Margaret comes close to suspecting anything out of the ordinary, but she’s careful to only mention it when neither her parents nor her siblings are around.

“So you had fun?” she prompts, hanging on Marlene’s arm and almost whining.

“Yeah, sure. You’ve met Doc; he’s great,” says Marlene, waving a hand vaguely and trying, unsuccessfully, to tug her arm out of her sister’s grip.

Margaret persists, “But there was that Death Eater attack—it was all over the papers this morning, made the cover of yesterday’s _Evening Prophet_. He’s an Auror, isn’t he? Didn’t he have to go in and help?”

“Moody gave him the day off,” replies Marlene a little too sharply. “Don’t you have some kind of prank to plan with Matt?”

“Didn’t we tell you it’s on _you_?” huffs Margaret, but she lets go and runs off to find her brother without further comment.

At Lily’s enablement, Marlene continues to act almost _too_ normal, and she has Lily convinced by the end of the week that most of her birthdays are, at least in part, spent alone. Even the next time she sees the Marauders—at another Quidditch game hosted by the Prewetts—Marlene doesn’t flinch, even when Black sweeps her into his arms with a whispered “happy birthday, Leigh” but leaves her empty-handed. Potter, too, notices nothing, making mere small talk instead: “You got my gift all right, Marlene?”

“Of course—you should have expected that, with Lily delivering,” Marlene scolds him playfully (Lily is happy to see that her blush isn’t nearly as bright as it would have been a few weeks ago). “Thanks so much for the tickets! The letter was lovely, too—it was sweet of you.”

Potter grins and tackles her in a hug as well, once Black lets go. “Have a good birthday? I was sorry I couldn’t see you, but I know you always spend the day with your uncle…” An uncle—so that’s how she passes Doc off at school.

“Oh, no, don’t be. It was wonderful,” she assures him. With his face buried in her shoulder, he doesn’t notice the unusual brightness in her eyes. Still, Lily finds it appalling that the only person to catch on to something funny is a fourteen-year-old without a real understanding of the war.

Potter pulls back and surveys her (though, obviously to Lily, not closely enough). “I’m glad,” he says, and he sounds sincere. “I’ll see you on Wednesday, then? Eight o’clock.”

“Eight o’clock,” Marlene repeats, smiling, before she darts off to join her team with Black.

It feels like eight o’clock on Wednesday can’t come soon enough. Though being around the other Gryffindors still makes Lily a touch uncomfortable, it’s hard not to get excited when she’s never been to a concert before, let alone a wizarding one. Besides, Potter’s been bearable all summer thus far, and she’s more than a little curious to meet his parents—and she’s put off inviting Lupin to Tuney’s wedding far too long.

She puts off packing until the day of, so that she won’t get too far ahead of herself. “Should we bring sleeping bags?” she asks Marlene as she throws together a knapsack for the night: pajamas and Muggle clothes for the morning, a hairbrush and clip, toothbrush and toothpaste…

“Believe me, we won’t need them,” scoffs Marlene as Lily searches frantically through her trunk for dental floss. “We’ll be in the guestrooms.”

Guest _rooms_? “How big is this house, exactly?” she asks Marlene, finding the floss and tossing it in with her things.

Marlene just smiles, zipping up her own duffel bag (why it’s necessary for one night’s worth of personal items, Lily’s not entirely sure). “Big enough to accommodate a lot more than five guests,” she says simply as she watches Lily make a final scan of her sack before slamming it (and her trunk) shut. “Ready to go?”

“But it’s only seven-thirty,” Lily protests mildly, checking her watch.

Marlene laughs. “As if that would ever stop _them_ from showing up early.” Lily remembers, suddenly, back to that first day of summer, when Potter caught her early in the morning in Marlene’s kitchen, still in her pajamas. It feels like so long ago already…

“Fair enough,” she accepts, tossing the knapsack over her shoulder and straightening her robes. “You’re sure you’re supposed to wear wizard robes to this? It seems a little suspicious, a congregation of wizards in bizarre attire—”

“Trust me,” says Marlene loudly over Lily’s mumblings about the Statute of Secrecy. “You’ll look sorely out of place wearing anything else, except maybe a Peverells T-shirt, and you don’t have one of those, do you? Let’s go,” Marlene decides as Lily’s shaking her head and sighing.

She joins Marlene at the much-frequented hearth and helps her lug her duffel bag into the fire with her after she’s tossed in her Floo powder. “Helene’s Manor!” she bellows into the flames, and Lily soon follows suit.

After the journey, she stumbles out of a rather spacious fireplace into a room with cream walls and hardwood floors that squeak under her flats. “Marlene?” she calls—she doesn’t answer.

Hitching up her rucksack, she steps through one of the room’s two doors into what looks to be an ornately decorated ballroom. Uninhibited by the classmates she’s not quite ready to get to know, she gasps audibly and walks to the center of the room, pushing to the back of her mind the better sense to go back through the other door and look for Potter or Marlene. After a brief glimpse at the wide, mullioned windows—while Lily appreciates beauty, she’s never been much interested in architecture—she lays down her sack and starts to revolve on the spot, dancing with an imaginary partner.

She trips and falls mid-leap when there’s a knock on the door, and she spots Remus Lupin looking embarrassed in the doorway. Feeling rather foolish, she rubs her bum and winces as she gets up. “Er—hello,” Lily greets him self-consciously. “I came out of the fireplace there, and I didn’t want to get lost, and—”

He smiles, shaking his head, and comes into the ballroom. “Don’t worry about it. There’s about twelve fireplaces in this place hooked up to the Floo Network; it was bad planning on Prongs’s part not to pick you and Marlene up. We only went looking for you because Marlene found us in the living room—she’s been here before, so she knows her way around. We didn’t realize you’d come so early, else we’d have found you by now.” Lily bites her lip, still feeling uncomfortable. “You’re all right?”

“Yeah. I dance a fair amount at home; my bum can take it from experience,” she jokes, cracking a timid smile. Lupin grins back and extends a hand, to which she simply stares, wide-eyed.

“Honestly, Lily,” he teases, grabbing her dangling hand himself, “you didn’t think I’d catch you dancing like that and get away without sharing your expertise, did you?”

Lily blushes and takes his hand, joining him in a basic box step. “If Potter catches us like this—”

“Prongs would have done the same thing,” says Lupin earnestly. All things considered, he’s probably right.

“You know, Lupin—Remus,” Lily correct herself at his glare, “speaking of dancing, I’ve been meaning to ask you—would you like to be my date to my sister’s wedding?” He raises an eyebrows. “Well, not my date, exactly—she didn’t even send me an invitation, we’re not on the best of terms, but according to my mum, the invitation _would_ have been made out to ‘Lily Evans and guest,’ and Severus and I—”

“Breathe,” advises Lupin, and Lily breaks off, tripping over his feet. “What’s the date of the wedding? Because if it’s this weekend, I’ve already made plans—”

Relief washes over her: is that a yes? “No, it’s on the eighteenth, but we’d be staying at my house that whole weekend.”

He doesn’t hesitate for long. “I’d love to come,” he assures her, spinning her in place.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Thanks,” Lily says gratefully, squeezing his hand. “Think we should be getting back?”

Lupin nods and leads her out of the ballroom. “I can’t believe you Flooed into the _ballroom antechamber_ ,” he says to himself as they pass through the room Lily came through—she jogs to catch up to him, having gone back into the ballroom for her knapsack. “Almost everyone comes in at one of the living or dining rooms…”

“ _One of_ them?” she says curiously, trailing him down a narrow hall and continuing down a winding staircase.

“Yes, well, it’s a huge manor,” Lupin admits, breathing a little harder than normal as they spiral down. “It was bought into Prongs’s family about a century and a half ago; it used to be Helena Ravenclaw’s, and you can imagine what kind of wealth _she_ inherited from her mother to build this place.”

“Helene’s Manor,” Lily repeats under her breath, and Lupin nods, reaching the landing. “But wouldn’t it be in the family of Ravenclaw’s heir?”

Lupin turns around and shoots her a surprised look. “Ravenclaw doesn’t have an heir,” he informs her. “From the number of times I’ve seen you carrying around _Hogwarts, A History_ , I’d think you would know that. Anyway, Prongs’s mum was a Ravenclaw.”

Lupin leads her out of a wider hallway into a large living room, where Potter, Black, Pettigrew, and Marlene are seated. “Lily Evans, lady and gentlemen,” presents Lupin, grinning at her. The ensuing cacophony of greetings makes Lily blush again as she drops her sack on an end table and herself in the armchair next to it.

Pettigrew waves to her from one of the loveseats, and Black comments, “Good of you to join us, Evans. T-minus two hours…”

She gives them both a small smile, then directs her attention to Potter. “Thanks again for the tickets and for letting us stay and everything,” she tells him, even as he ruffles his hair with chagrin. “You really didn’t have to go out of your way like that.”

“’S no problem,” he assures her, grinning, as Marlene thanks him again for the “amazing” birthday gift. Lily notices that she and Black are on opposite ends of the room, even though everyone here knows about them. Getting up, Potter adds, “Now that we’ve located you, care to choose a room to sleep in tonight?”

Lily shrugs and gives the others a parting wave, grabbing the bag and following him out into the hall. “All the bedrooms are on the fourth and fifth floor,” Potter’s saying, and Lily sighs as she heads back up yet another staircase with him. At her expression, he chuckles and decides, “In that case, we’ll put you on the fourth. There’s ten bedrooms, though if you want a private bathroom, you’ll have to go up to the fifth… no, I didn’t think so. And of those ten, three are already taken by me, Moony, and Wormtail—Padfoot, Marlene, and my parents are on the fifth—so you’ll have seven to choose from… that enough of a selection for you?”

“This house is brilliant—would you mind much if I moved in with you?” Lily says breathlessly as they mount a second staircase.

Potter laughs loudly and grabs her hand, kissing it (she pulls back in mock disgust). “Moving fast, are we, Red? And I thought you’d at least allow me the liberty of kissing you first.”

“Not since you’ve already allowed _yourself_ that liberty,” she chides him, making a show of wiping her hand on her robes. “Besides, haven’t you heard? Lupin and I are madly in love.”

Potter stops abruptly; Lily promptly smashes into his back and expect to fall the _very_ long way back down to the ground floor, but he grabs her hand again just in time, this time with an iron grip. “You and Moony?” he says, his voice strangled.

Lily raises her eyebrows. “I was kidding. You don’t honestly think anyone I refer to by surname has a shot with me, do you?” Potter laughs nervously, then breaks out into the start of a real smile—which quickly fades to a sort of open-mouthed confusion. (Presumably, he’d thought he might have a shot—then realized that she still calls him Potter.) “And it’s not a date, exactly, but I’m bringing him to my sister’s wedding.”

“I thought I was your default fake date,” mumbles Potter, not budging. “I thought—”

“Check back with me on that after we’ve become mates,” Lily suggests. “Do you mind…?”

He looks around wildly and runs his fingers through his hair, harrowed. “Right,” he says to himself, “right…” and without another word, he whirls around and practically marches back up the staircase.

Lily tears after him, her backpack whipping behind her as they curl upwards. “What, now you’re cross with me because I invited Lupin to a family function? Merlin, Potter, it’s not like we’re betrothed or anything; what right do _you_ have to—”

“I don’t know about you, Red, but _I_ consider us mates,” he retorts—but he sounds wearier than he does angry. “And I thought that if you could stand to pretend to date me for a full day to McKinnon, then you’d be more than happy to invite me as a friend. How many times have you ever even _talked_ to Moony? Four? Five?”

“I’m supposed to bring a _guest_ , not necessarily a _mate_. A month ago, I would have invited Severus, but since that’s not exactly an option and you lot have never treated me right when it would have been, I’ve got to start from scratch with picking my mates, haven’t I, and I’d rather start with someone I don’t already have a history of animosity with!” Lily bursts in a rush.

They’ve stopped again, having reached the landing of the manor’s third story, and Potter is just _staring_ at her—staring like he’s never really seen her before. “I’ve never wanted anything but friendship from you, Red,” he says intently. (Lily snorts derisively.) “I mean, of course I think you’re attractive—I’ve thought that since first year—and I’ll be the first to admit now that I know you better that maybe I’ve approached you the wrong way before, but I’ve only ever tried to be open with you, and for five years you’ve shot me down, and I take it because you’re worth the effort and the trials and the mood swings for the rare moment when we’re in a good place, you know? Because we always hit a good place, every now and then, for a couple days or maybe a week or two at most, but then something like _this_ happens where you shut me out without any good reason, and I—”

“Merlin, will you quit trying to play the guilt card and taking everything so personally? Or are you just dragging out your monologue because you love to hear yourself talk?” she half shouts at him. “I don’t see how my inviting Lupin to Tuney’s wedding has _anything_ to do with shutting you out, and I _really_ don’t see how you’ve ever thought that we’ve been in a good place before with you tormenting Severus all the time, but there’s one thing you’re right about—having _approached me the wrong way before_. I shouldn’t even have come here today, I should have known you’d get around to antagonizing me sooner or later…”

“ _Antagonizing_ you?” For the first time today, Potter’s tone shifts to resentment. “Like I’d really try and _antagonize_ the girl I’ve been chasing after for all this time? Like I wouldn’t rather be snogging you senseless than having you pick fights with me when I get the rare chance to see you?”

“If you’re _really_ that fond of me, you aren’t doing a very good job of making me believe you,” she spits, crossing her arms.

In the time of about half a second, he goes from glaring at her to grabbing her—cradling her head in one hand, looping the free arm around her waist, and breathing her in. It’s softer than the grope Lily would have expected from him, but she doesn’t give herself long enough to identify appropriate adjectives before she shoves him away, fuming. “What in the _bloody hell_ was that, Potter? Did I give the impression that it’s all right to hug me?” she nearly shrieks, practically shaking.

“Oh, _I’m_ sorry, Red—did I misunderstand you when you told me to prove that I’m fond of you?” he says. “Because my words and subtler actions haven’t seemed to cut it for the last, I don’t know, five years.”

She clings, shaking, to her rucksack. “Just take me up to the fourth floor.”

“Stop acting like I hate you,” he shoots right back. She rolls her eyes but doesn’t complain, so he turns on his heels and jogs up the final flight of steps. “The doors at the ends of the hall are bathrooms,” he says, his voice clipped and bitter. “I’m guessing you’ll want a room away from mine?”

A flicker of something like hurt flashing through his eyes at Lily’s nod, he leads her to the right of the stairs and throws open the second to last door on the left. “You think this’ll work?” She nods again, barely looking into the room as she tosses her sack on the bed and proceeds to follow him down all four flights of stairs without a single word from either of them.

The tension only eases at the end of the concert—during the last song, in fact—when Potter asks Lily to dance to (what else?) “Moontrimmer” with him. Though still inwardly fuming about the fight, she can recognize an apology when she sees one, even if it takes a rather unconventional form—but then, that’s to be expected from Potter. So with a somewhat fabricated huff on Lily’s part, she accepts the invitation, then bursts into laughter when he unceremoniously pulls her into a fast-paced jitterbug in the middle of a rock song. “Where’d you learn to dance, Potter?” she asks, giggling, as they attract a considerable number of stares.

“My mum forced me to take lessons,” he says easily, looking surprised that she’s keeping up. “What’s your excuse?”

“Childhood hobby—I forced my mum to _let_ me take lessons,” Lily says right back, grinning.

He shifts quickly to the tango just when Lily’s getting into it, claiming that the jitterbug “really isn’t my comfort zone”—but she doesn’t complain, just tries to keep time to the music and hopes that Marlene isn’t paying them any attention. Potter sings softly throughout the song, and she catches pieces of the lyrics when he pulls her close.

_I know I’m in too deep, but soon you will see…_

Most of The Peverells’ songs are short—under three minutes, even—but they get out of the concert (which started at ten, mind you) at nearly midnight. Though Potter has backstage passes for them, Lupin persuades him to head straight home; indeed, the pallor of his skin and bags under his eyes convince Lily that he must be ill, but when she asks, he just shrugs and says he’s not used to staying up late.

So they head for the nearest fireplace and squeeze their ways through, each accepting a pinch of Floo powder from a bored-looking usher. “You’d better go in with me, Red, don’t want you getting lost again,” Potter instructs Lily, and she nods and steps alongside him into the green flames.

They come out in another anteroom, but not the same as before—there’s a loveseat pushed about a meter away from an adjacent wall, and the walls are painted rosy-red. “I don’t know what it is about you and these fireplaces, Red,” he says, dumbfounded. “ _Everyone_ comes out at the living room…”

“Where does this room lead?” Lily inquires, the heels Marlene forced her to wear clicking against the wood floor.

“Study,” says Potter shortly. “D’you want to take a look around? We’ve got a huge collection of Muggle books, you know.”

She perks up at the Muggle mention. “Fiction or nonfiction?” she asks, following him inside.

The study is pitch-black, but after a bit of rummaging on a mahogany desk close to the doorway, he’s able to light a gas lamp. A smile involuntarily crosses her lips; clearly, Potter was understating. The “study” is roughly the size of the Hogwarts library’s Restricted Section, judging from the times she’s been there for coursework, and is furnished up to its (very high) ceiling with bookshelves crammed full of ancient-looking books. “All right, it’s official, I’m _definitely_ camping out here sometime,” she says frankly; Potter snorts with laughter and hangs in the doorway as she browses through the rows of shelves.

“It’s mostly nonfiction, but there’s a shelf of fantasy fiction somewhere in the back,” he tells her. “Mum’s always been fascinated by Muggle fantasy—thinks that what they dream up about magic is riveting.”

Lily laughs softly, running her forefinger over a dusty line of books. “I went through a fantasy stage myself before Hogwarts,” she murmurs. “Right after Severus told me I was a witch. Tuney and I must have checked out every fantasy novel in the public library…”

“Snape?” intones Potter. She turns to face him; he’s gone stiff, his knuckles white from his grip on the desk.

Lily quirks an eyebrow at him. “I thought you knew about me and Severus—you were quick to throw that in my face on the first day of the holidays.”

“No—I did. I do,” he asserts, looking down. “You just caught me off guard, that’s all… Red, how far did—how close did you and Snape get, by the end?”

She’s startled by his tone of voice—James Potter, of all people, is not known for self-consciousness. “Well,” she begins, reluctant to continue; Severus is a wound she hasn’t had time to heal. “He—he was my best friend, you know that. We got off on the wrong foot, actually—Tuney was there, and she didn’t take to him… but he kept seeking me out, and we would just—we’d talk, all day, for three years. He never… I just can’t wrap my head around it, you know? The blood prejudice. It wasn’t ever an issue with him until Hogwarts, and he’d always tell me not to listen to what people said about my parentage, that it didn’t matter… he was just Sev, when he was with me. A little awkward, maybe, but mostly just shy. He was always so sweet…”

Lily doesn’t realize until Potter steps forward with his handkerchief outstretched that her eyes are welling up. She offers him a choked laugh and dabs at them hastily, grateful not quite to be crying. “Thanks,” she says, embarrassed.

He just nods and shoves his hands in his pockets with the handkerchief that she hands back to him. “None of us could ever understand what you saw in him, you know,” Potter admits clumsily, after a while—she hasn’t the slightest idea how long.

“I know,” she confirms, turning her head. “You wouldn’t know—he was almost a different person, whenever he was around me. He could be a great man, if not for his friends; they’re such awful influences on him…”

After what feels like forever, Potter suggests, “You reckon we should get to bed now? They’re probably all wondering where we’ve got off to.”

“Right, yeah,” Lily agrees, waiting as he turns out the light. The study is thrown into darkness again; she keeps close to his heels and tries to remember the path from here to the staircase leading to the fourth floor. “Promise you’ll take me back here tomorrow?”

Potter chuckles, but he’s learned his lesson about stopping her in stairwells and doesn’t slow down. “You’re awfully flighty, aren’t you, Red? Hate me, then love me…”

She shoots him her discomfited smile—the one with the bitten lip that’s half the size of her usual grin—and she doesn’t apologize for the fight, because apologies no longer feel necessary.

In her borrowed bedroom—it’s much larger and better furnished than she could have expected, now that she has the patience to look around—Marlene is waiting for her when Potter drops her off. Lily can tell that he’s hovering out in the hall as she orders, “Details, _now_ ,” and she catches his light chuckle before she pointedly closes the door to him.

“There’s not much to tell, really,” Lily fibs, rummaging through her knapsack for pajamas and underpants.

She can tell, though, that Marlene’s not convinced. “Oh, and you think none of us heard you two rowing in the stairwell earlier? You quarrel, you barely _look_ at each other for two hours—then you’re dancing at the concert and disappear for an hour after? I doubt that you got Jay lost in his own house, Lily.”

“It’s been an hour?” Lily asks casually, checking her watch and starting to untie her robes. “Must have lost track of time… felt like ten minutes, really.” By the look on her face, Marlene is unimpressed. “All right, all right… we fought and made up, you know that, and then we came out in the antechamber to a study full of Muggle fantasy and nonfiction. I got a big caught up in browsing the shelves, and then Potter made me go to bed. That’s all—it _is_!”

Marlene sighs, disgruntled—apparently, Lily spends enough time in the Hogwarts library to pull off the lie. “You two have a bizarre relationship. Honestly, you couldn’t get any rockier with the bloke…”

“You know, technically, I could,” Lily points out, tugging on her outgrown nightshirt. “We could be like you and Black.”

Marlene throws one of Lily’s pillows at her, who deflects it by bouncing it off of her dressing gown, which she stretches out like a net. “You were all over Potter and Lupin tonight, but you didn’t dance _once_ with Black, even though everyone in this house knows why you chose a room on the same floor as his,” Lily observes, wrapping the dressing gown around her shoulders and plopping down next to Marlene on the unnecessarily king-sized bed.

Flushing, Marlene retorts, “At least I have the decency not to flash my love life all over the place. Can’t say the same for yourself, I’m afraid.”

Lily throws the fallen pillow back at her; Marlene squeaks in panic, then lapses into giggles. “Potter has nothing to do with my love life! I don’t even _have_ a love life.”

“Really? So Snape never _once_ tried to lay one on you all those years—?” She wiggles her eyebrows (rather comically, Lily must admit).

“ _Marlene_!”

She sighs contentedly, rolling onto her stomach. “I never thought we’d get here, you know?” Marlene says. She continues in response to Lily’s confused expression, “To the part where we can gossip freely about things like _boys_. Not only would I never have expected your hormones to develop that far—”

Lily bombards her with another onslaught of pillows. She’s prepared this time, though, and barely even flinches. “I figured that if you ever connected with any of the girls, it would be Alice.”

“Alice?” Lily repeats, startled. “Really? I mean, not that there’s anything _wrong_ with Alice, but she’s just so…”

Marlene fills in the blanks for her. “Perky, brainy, insufferably perfect. Merlin, Lily, the two of you are practically twins.”

Lily blushes a little—she wouldn’t have phrased it _exactly_ like that. “I was going to say ‘placid.’ It’s unnerving, really. It’s like she doesn’t have any weaknesses—”

“You know, you act the same way most of the time,” Marlene informs her, glowing. “I always thought that out of all of us, you’d probably latch onto Alice and drive everyone else mad for the rest of time, but you’ve actually turned out to have a personality, you know that? I wouldn’t have pegged you to have one before now, honestly.”

Rolling her eyes, Lily shoots back, “Yeah, thanks. You’re not as shallow as I thought, either.”

Indignantly, Marlene scoffs, “Since when do people think I’m _shallow_?”

“Well, you don’t exactly go around admitting that you have actual depth to people—it makes you look flaky,” Lily confesses.

This time, when Marlene hits her with the pillows, it’s full-out war.


	6. July 8th

Before she remembers where she is, Lily is a bit confused the next morning when she wakes to the combined scents of freshly baked pancakes and unwashed feet. She takes a few seconds to adjust before having the good sense to bolt out of bed and away from the offending feet—Marlene’s. “Way to put a damper on my sense of smell,” she mutters, rubbing her arms in the cold shock of having ridden herself of blankets.

“And here I thought I was doing you a favor,” comes a voice from behind her. Lily whirls around—it’s Black, holding out a breakfast tray and looking all too at ease. “Then again, Prongs _does_ tell me I tend to reek of wet dog in the mornings.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean you,” she assures him, grabbing her dressing robe off the floor and wrapping herself in it (she’d noticed that he wasn’t looking where her eyes were). “I meant Marlene’s feet—does she always sleep with her head at the foot of the bed?”

Black shrugs and thrusts the tray out at Lily. “I wouldn’t know—you’re the one who sleeps in her dorm. You going to eat this or what?”

“I assumed it was for her,” she replies honestly, jerking her head at Marlene (who lets out a fairly unattractive snore).

“Right, like Marlene can hold anything down within an hour of waking up—why else d’you think she wakes up at five every day?” he retorts, dropping it in Lily’s lap. A bit of orange juice splashes on her dressing gown, but she doesn’t complain—a simple spell will take the stain out back at Hogwarts.

Instead, she suppresses a blush at knowing so little about her Hogwarts roommate—by the day, it becomes more and more obvious how isolated she’s been from the rest of her house all this time. “I still think it’s a bit fishy that you made me breakfast,” Lily persists, fiddling with the provided utensils: for some reason, he’d given her a spoon instead of a knife.

“You’d be right to, if I’d made it for you,” Black agrees, sitting on the bed and scooting at least a meter away from Lily. Old habits die hard. “Prongs’s mum had the good sense to cook everyone breakfast at eight in the morning, so she put Prongs and me on breakfast-in-bed duty. Eat up.”

“Potter let you take my room?” she says skeptically, sawing through the pancakes with the fork’s edge (Black looks thoroughly amused by this).

“No, his mum _made_ me take your room,” Black corrects, yawning. “Doesn’t trust him alone with you in here—she wasn’t banking on Marlene’s… aromatic company.”

Lily snorts through a mouthful of orange juice and dabs delicately at her face, hoping he won’t notice the trickle of juice dripping from her nose (he does, of course, and laughs loudly enough to elicit a snore from Marlene). “You know, I think Potter was right about you; you do smell a bit like wet dog,” she goads him, ripping off another chunk of pancake. “Don’t mention to him that I agreed with him on something, though; he might have a coronary from the shock of it.”

Black grins. “All right, but don’t be surprised if I leak it to Moony or Wormtail, completely by accident, of course.”

“Fair enough,” Lily consents, tilting her head. Black is silent as she chews through her pancakes, idly wishing that Mrs. Potter had had the foresight to add a touch more syrup. When she’s nearly done, Marlene gives a great snort and bolts upright: this wake-up, too, Lily doesn’t recognize (but then, she sleeps much later than does Marlene).

“Morning, sunshine,” greets Black, his voice softening. Marlene stretches and smiles up at him; he bounces into the center of the bed and crawls over to put an arm around her.

Awkwardly, Lily decides, “I’ll just go give this back to Mrs. Potter, then.”

Marlene is too groggy to care, grinning lazily at her, but Black is quick to protest: “Oh, no, Evans, that’s all right, I can—”

“Oh, no, it’s fine, really,” she insists, downing the last of her orange juice and getting up. “I’ll see you two in a bit, then?” Black looks like he’s about to complain, but Marlene shushes him with a ferocious-looking kiss on the lips, and Lily steps out, making faces at him until she closes the door.

Once out in the hall, she retraces her steps from last night to find her way down to the living room, then wanders about and looks aimlessly for the kitchen (she remembers Potter having mentioned that it was somewhere on the first floor). She’s a bit surprised at Marlene’s forwardness with Black—right in front of Lily, no less, when they usually barely look at each other with others in the room—but she figures that Marlene’s too groggy of thought this early in the morning.

“Evans?” It’s Pettigrew, looking a bit startled to see Lily—and given her current wardrobe and the condition of her hair, she can’t say she blames the boy. “Where’s Padfoot? Mrs. Potter will be angry—she thought it was sweet that he was staying with you, but he’s, er, _not_ with you.”

Lily smiles—unlike with all the other Gryffindors, she doesn’t feel intimidated in the slightest by Pettigrew, who’s the least impressive but possibly the sweetest of the bunch. “He did stay with me, actually, but Marlene slept in my room last night after we were up late talking, and I thought it would be a good time to bow out.”

“Good idea,” says Pettigrew fervently. “Marlene tends to give him, erm, thoroughly nonverbal greetings in the morning. Anyway, do you want me to take you to the kitchen? Not that you look lost, but—”

“That would be great, Pettigrew,” she accepts, nodding. “Thanks.”

He flushes pink and leads her down a few sharp turns, then opens a heavy wooden door and bows theatrically. Grinning at him, she steps into the kitchen, where Potter and Lupin are laughing loudly with a middle-aged woman who must be Potter’s mother. “Mrs. Potter?” she introduces herself, stepping forward with the tray and place settings (now that she looks at them, the pattern looks to be fairly expensive). “I don’t believe we’ve met yet; I’m Lily Evans…”

She knows just what to make of Lily, waving off further salutations as she takes the tray and washes it with a jet of water from her wand. “Lily, Lily, of course. Dorea Potter, a pleasure to meet you… Charlus had to get to work, but he will be so sad he missed you, you’re such a lovely young woman.”

Potter talks over his mother, adding, “You’re looking especially lovely this morning, if I do say so myself, Red.” Lily’s face turns an array of colors, and she watches her feet and plays with a curl of her hair.

“Don’t embarrass your friend, James,” snaps Mrs. Potter, pointing her wand accusatively at her son and spraying him with the gushing water.

“Mum, the _hair_!” cries Potter, wriggling out of his shirt and using it to dry his hair, which is _almost_ flat to his head with all the water. Lily pointedly looks away from his chest.

Pettigrew adds, proving a needed distraction from Potter as he steps in with Lily, “You know, Dorea, Prongs wasn’t necessarily insinuating that Lily _doesn’t_ look lovely; you could argue it only comes off like that since you pointed out the possibility that she might not…”

Potter nods fervently in Pettigrew’s (and, thus, his own) defense, but Mrs. Potter raises the wand warningly in both of their directions, though she’s stopped the jet of water. The words die on Pettigrew’s lips and fade into an incoherent mumble, though Potter looks all too relaxed.

“Come have a seat, Lily, Wormtail,” offers Lupin, pulling out two chairs. Pettigrew shakes his head, dithering something about having been about to brush his teeth when he’d found her, so Lily takes the seat nearest Lupin and smiles in thanks. He’s not looking much better than he was yesterday, she notices: though the dark rings under his eyes have gone down, she’s sure his skin wasn’t that pale a week ago, and there’s something weary about the way he carries himself.

Relatively confident in his hair’s disorder, Potter pulls his shirt back on, to Lily’s relief, and speaks up. “Red, where’s Padfoot? Why didn’t he come in with you?”

“Marlene woke up right when I was finishing breakfast—thanks for cooking, Mrs. Potter,” she adds before she forgets. Mrs. Potter just scowls modestly at Lily and busies herself putting away dishes. “I thought I’d give them some privacy.”

“More like you’d get nightmares from them if you didn’t,” mutters Potter, looking green. “She crashed in your room last night?”

“We were up late… I don’t even remember falling asleep.”

“Gossiping?” suggests Potter, his eyes twinkling.

“Keep it to yourself, dear, he’s not worth telling,” Mrs. Potter advises her (Potter grumbles something about “bias against me” and “bloody feminist movement”).

Lily chuckles quietly and tells him aside, “You’ll want to be careful, Potter—I hear that _real_ feminists can be rather militant. Mrs. Potter,” she continues, raising her voice, “would you mind much if I stayed here today? Potter was showing me your Muggle study when we Flooed into its antechamber last night, and I was hoping to get the chance to take a look at some of your books…”

“Of course, Lily,” she agrees immediately, chuckling a little when Lily called her son by surname. “Only you’ll have to stay through dinner, too; Charlus would positively _love_ to get the chance to meet you…”

She starts to say something about staying with Marlene, but Potter interrupts, pouting. “C’mon, Red, we’re having tenderloin tonight, it’ll blow your mind.” Lily raises an eyebrow but consents nevertheless: Mr. and Mrs. McKinnon are both vegetarians.

So she stays for the day. It’s the first time she’s been away from Marlene for more than a few hours all summer, and to her surprise, she rather misses her. It’s painfully obvious, after living with her for so long, that she needs a real mate as much as Lily needs a mate at all, and from their codependence has come a mutual understanding—even the budding of a friendship. Potter is lively (albeit pesky) company, every so often bursting into the study to read over her shoulder and provide a running commentary on the wizarding misinterpretation of this or that, but she’s gotten used to hearing Marlene’s blunt revelations and unashamed gossip, and he can’t quite compete with _that_ level of honesty.

What he lacks in candor, though, he certainly compensates for in intensity. He comes in with a tray for lunch—beef stew, tossed salad, and mineral water—around two o’clock and asks offhand, “Have you even gone out to use the loo yet?”

“What’s it to you the size of my bladder?” Lily asks right back, still poring over Patricia McKillip’s _The Forgotten Beasts of Eld_.

Potter shrugs and sidles on top of the desk, snatching up her book and losing her place. “Gotten into Mum’s British Fantasy Society collection, have you?”

Lily blinks. “Your mum’s a member of the British Fantasy Society?”

He snorts and extends the tray toward her. “Of course not; are you kidding? The Ministry’d never let her risk it, with the Statute of Secrecy and all.”

Nodding, she accepts the tray. “She doesn’t have to cater to me all day, you know. First breakfast-in-bed, now this…”

“Ah, she loves it,” Potter assures me, taking a swig from the water bottle. “She’s a respected Healer in her own right, but she gets really into all the domestic stuff. Just take the food without question.”

Lily raises her eyebrows as she snatches back her water. “Mineral water? Is this a joke?”

He shakes his head and grins. “Believe it,” he counters, then pauses as she starts on the soup. “You really shouldn’t be holed up in here all day, Red, it’s no good for the soul.”

“For the soul. Really.”

“I watch you sometimes,” Potter tells her in earnest, taking another sip of water (drinking liberally, now that Lily’s established she doesn’t want it). “And it’s not just about your looks. Once there’s more than, oh, three people in the room, you just close up, and—you don’t talk or smile or _laugh_ at all—”

“So I don’t feel comfortable in big groups of people,” Lily says, shrugging, through a mouthful of lettuce and tomato. “Is there a problem?”

He claps suddenly and points at her, like she’s just paved the way for some huge revelation. “But that’s just the thing; you’re not yourself around them—I don’t think I’ve seen you talk with your mouth full _once_ until just now, you know that? I’ll bet you barely even know the other girls, just me and Snape.”

“And what makes you think you know me?” There’s that question again, the one he can’t seem to properly answer, whether his fault or hers.

“You let go when it’s just us,” he responds, voice lower now, as if he’s speaking over a track of melancholy music, acting in one of the soaps Lily’s mum likes. “It’s not what I know, it’s how I bring it out.”

She holds his gaze steadily for a while, then slurps indifferently at her stew. Gradually, a grin breaks over his face, and he says with borderline delight, “You don’t _care_.”

“Nope,” she says needlessly, stabbing bits of salad with her fork. He needn’t know that Lily is at least a little intrigued by his line of attack.

“Oh, but this changes everything, Red,” he says, his smile hardly fading. “You don’t even _mind_.”

Potter goes quiet—awfully quiet—for a while as she finishes lunch and makes progress on the novel; he just sips at her water and keeps reading over her shoulder, then offers to take the tray back for her once she’s done. “Be sure to tell your mum thanks for me,” Lily insists, and though he nods and assures her he will, she strongly doubts his sincerity.

For the rest of the day, Potter returns to his usual peskiness and banter—the rest of the weekend, in fact, after Mrs. Potter insists Lily stay a few extra days. “Feel free to invite Marlene, too, honey,” she tells me, but Marlene declines, citing summer homework—though Lily knows for a fact that Black hasn’t been at the manor and therefore suspects her reasoning.

They’re falling into a routine of sorts by the time Lily finally catches the other Marauders around the next day. She’s come out of the study to look for a bathroom when she stumbles upon Potter with Lupin and Pettigrew in a corridor, arguing heatedly in low voices. “I just can’t believe you invited her here for the weekend, Prongs. Of _all_ days…” Lupin’s saying when Lily crosses them. She recognizes herself as the subject of the conversation immediately and doesn’t take another step closer, hovering in the arch.

“ _I_ didn’t invite her, my mum did,” Potter insists, folding his arms. “What am I supposed to do, kick her out? ‘Hey, Red, you’ve got to sneak out a day early because I have to be somewhere Saturday night that you can’t know about.’ That’s subtle.”

“You don’t _have_ to come,” Pettigrew says meekly, glancing warily down the hall (Lily ducks behind the doorway out of eyeshot). “Padfoot and I can make do without you—”

He says shortly, “I’m coming—I’m not missing this. I’ll figure something out about Red; even if she finds out we’re up to something, she’ll keep her mouth shut. I know that about her.”

“ _Merlin_ , Prongs,” sighs Lupin, clearly hung up on whatever issue they’re discussing. “Don’t you realize that you’re dragging _Lily Evans_ into this? Who knows how much Snape told her the last time? She could still be wrapped around his finger, for all you know.”

Bewildered, Lily strains to listen as Pettigrew further lowers his voice. “We already know he’s a Death Eater; he could have gotten her involved in that. And with her permission to spill the beans, they’d jump all over this.”

Potter comes fast to Lily’s defense. “She’s not. She’s not even friends with him anymore. Have a little faith, why don’t you?”

“Yeah, well, just because _you_ think she can do no wrong—” persists Pettigrew.

“No one knows exactly what went on between them,” Lupin says darkly. “Or whether they’ll make up. You’ve heard the rumors about it—whether it was just friendship or a relationship, even that they’d practice Dark magic on each other…”

“Lily would never sink to that,” says Potter, and his voice is shaking. “And just for that comment, I’m not going to hide this from her.”

He practically flies down the corridor away from them, and Lily hastens back a few steps and make like she’s just now walking toward the doorway. Before they collide, she hears Lupin call at Potter’s retreating figure, “It’s not yours to tell, Prongs, don’t say anything you’ll regret…”

“Red!” exclaims Potter, slamming into her—she can tell he’s raising his voice for Lupin and Pettigrew’s sakes. “I—what are you doing down here?”

“Got lost looking for the loo,” she says, a half-truth. “Could you…?”

He helps her up and nods repeatedly. “Er—yeah, sure, ’course. I don’t know how you didn’t find it already; it’s right by the study… though in the opposite direction from the one you went.”

“That would explain it,” she says, faking a smile.

She’s caught between curiosity, shock, and disgust at the conversation she overheard, and her mind is still reeling when Potter brings it up, true to his word, while dropping her off at the bathroom. “Er, Red, before you—go…” Lily just nods for him to continue, leaning against the wall. “I’m going out with the Marauders tomorrow night—I’m leaving at maybe eight, since I’m flying, and I’ll probably be back a bit later… well, a lot later than I let on to my mum. Not that I thought you’d wait up or anything,” he titters, “but I just thought you ought to know, since you’re staying at my place and all. Just keep it to yourself, yeah?”

“Where are you going?” Lily asks, trying to sound casual.

Potter doesn’t miss a beat. “Moony’s.”

Lily presses further. “For what?” Potter doesn’t answer, but something clicks: they’d said that Severus knows too much… “All right, does this have anything to do with Severus’s theory about Lupin being a werewolf?”

His knees give out; she smiles weakly as he joins her against the wall. “I reckoned he would tell you,” Potter says to himself, though he still looks shell-shocked. “So did he figure it out before or after the time when Padfoot tricked him into going in the Shrieking Shack after Moony transformed on the full moon?”

“After,” Lily admits shortly. At least this clears up part of the earlier conversation: Death Eaters would surely be interested in knowing the identity of a Dark creature—as well as that of the person who used a werewolf to threaten someone’s life. The boys’ involvement, though, is still a mystery. “This thing you’re doing for Lupin…” she starts, catching Potter’s eye, “how dangerous is it?”

“I’ll be fine,” he says hastily.

“ _How dangerous_ , James?”  
  
After a lengthy pause, he turns away. “Don’t wait up tomorrow night, Evans.”

She calls after him when he makes to leave. “ _Potter_ —”

“Just use the bloody loo, Evans,” Potter barks, spitting out her surname like an insult and turning out of sight.

She locks herself in the bathroom for far longer than it takes to use it. Only a few things are for certain: her reputation is apparently in shambles, her soon-to-be-uninvited date to Tuney’s wedding is a werewolf, and she will most certainly be waiting up for Potter on Saturday night.

If she doesn’t go to Lupin’s herself first.

xx

For the next day and a half, Lily can hardly contain her building worry and rage. Though Mr. Potter (a pleasant, balding man who shakes her hand and tells her to keep his son under control) tells her she’s fabricating drama, Mrs. Potter is increasingly suspicious of the both of them: she tells Lily specifically at lunch on Saturday that she should come out of the study and socialize a little, and she even scolds Potter for “neglecting” his guest. “You ought to come find Lily more often, James,” she tuts. “Don’t you claim to be in love with her?”

“I _am_ in love with her, Mum,” sighs Potter (Lily turns furiously scarlet). “Lily knows that. But it doesn’t mean I have to be her keeper—you’d rather just read without me interrupting all the time, wouldn’t you, Lily?”

Lily nods; Mr. Potter notices her coloring and promptly changes the subject.

Potter has the courtesy to at least tell her when he’s leaving. “I’m off to Moony’s, Red, I just let Mum know,” he says, poking his head in the doorway and turning to leave.

“Wait.”

He lingers, looking cross. “Hurry up, Evans, they’re counting on me.”

“They’re not even _expecting_ you; you think I wasn’t eavesdropping before you found me looking for the bathroom yesterday?” Potter groans but doesn’t make any accusations, for which she’s grateful. “What could you possibly do for Lupin that would help him and not temp him to kill you?”

Potter chews over his words before he answers, softly, “Human Transfiguration. The company calms him down, makes him less violent—werewolves are only a danger to humans.”

Lily pauses—she wasn’t expecting that answer. “You could get expelled for doing that kind of magic outside of school, Potter. You’re all _idiots_ , of course—brilliant but stupid—but up at the castle it’s one thing—”

“The Ministry doesn’t know who performs the magic, just where,” says Potter. “Bit unfair to Muggle-borns, if you ask me, since you won’t get in trouble if your parents are wizards—we’re not going to get caught, all right, so don’t worry about us and just go to bed—”

“You’re mental for dreaming that up,” she insists. “ _Human Transfiguration_ …”

He shrugs. “I didn’t dream it up. Wormtail’s idea. He’s a brilliant bloke; people never give him any credit…”

“I’m coming with you,” Lily demands, changing tack.

Instantly, he turns white. “Lily, you _cannot_ come, you hear me? He’s not used to your presence, he’ll recognize you as human, it’ll just make him worse. Look, I’ve been going with him for a year; trust me, all right?”

She huffs but takes his point; Lily doesn’t want Potter to get himself killed, but she doesn’t want to endanger herself for no reason, either, when he could be just fine. “I’m waiting up,” she compromises.

“No, you’re—”

“I’m waiting up, Potter,” Lily says stiffly.

He recognizes something in her tone of voice. “You heard what they said about you, didn’t they?” asks Potter gently, stepping into the study.

She sets down the book and stands. “Severus is not a Death Eater,” she contends as he comes closer. “And I am _not_ some kind of—”

“I know,” he promises. He’s reached her but remains a decimeter away, wary about touching her after last time. “They don’t believe that, either, it’s just that we can’t take any chances for Moony. He didn’t even want _us_ knowing; we figured it out on our own.”

“Tell Lupin he’s uninvited from the wedding.” Potter nods, raking a hand through his hair. “I’m waiting up for you.”

He doesn’t protest, just guarantees, “I’ll fly straight into my room when I’m back. Meet me there.”

So she takes a handful of books up to Potter’s bedroom and changes into a pair of his long pajamas (Mrs. Potter hasn’t done the laundry since last night). They smell the same as Potter, as Lily’s noticed when he gets too close—like fauna and grass stains and ink—and she buries her nose in the fabric and hopes that Lupin won’t do any severe damage to the three of them.

It’s not so much that she cares about Potter as that she would care about anyone’s wellbeing, his included. If not for desperate measures, desperate times call at least for unexpected bursts of emotion. Lily had always partly believed Severus when he called Lupin a werewolf, but she’d never expected his mates to get involved—it seemed natural, before now, that they would have some kind of sense of preservation.

She starts to ponder what other secrets she doesn’t know about in their year—the books, though interesting, aren’t urgent enough to warrant her attention. And she doesn’t mean how long Patil was seeing Catchlove before he left Davies; she means real, honest-to-Merlin life-or-death things that can’t get out. She’d never heard a word of doubt in her character before Friday, when Pettigrew and Lupin insinuated that she and Severus both practice Dark magic; though she’s shocked and offended by that shallow a view of her, she can’t help but wonder what other social repercussions have resulted from their friendship. Hasn’t anyone noticed that Lily detests his Slytherin mates, that she tones down his hatred of Gryffindors, that she’s done nothing but broach house lines in an effort not to discriminate?

By the time she catches her eyelids drooping, it’s nearly four in the morning. A quick glance out the window tells her that the moon is still out, and knowing Potter, he won’t leave until Lupin transforms again. Add that to the flight from Wales to Cornwall, and it’ll be eight o’clock in the morning by the time he’s back.

She’s kicking herself at this point—how could she not have noticed the Marauders’ involvement? All last year, they’ve missed class on the first day of Lupin’s prolonged monthly absences, but Severus explained that as them visiting Lupin in the Hospital Wing all day. Lily expects that they _do_ spend the day with him, to stop the teachers from getting suspicious—but they likely spend more time sleeping at his bedside than keeping him company, having been up all night with him themselves. It’s a huge commitment to Lupin, she realizes as she stares emptily out the window; that they would risk so much for him: they may be idiots, but they’re certainly loyal idiots.

But it occurs to her soon after that they’re not loyal enough to protect him—at least, Black isn’t. Using Lupin to endanger Severus’s life… a burning fury with Black, coupled with sharp sympathy for Lupin, fills her, and Lily moans and flings herself back on Potter’s pillows. _Why_ did they have to get involved?

Her thoughts are interrupted by a disturbance at the window—Potter, several hours early and barely upright on his broom. Panicked, she hurries to open the window and help him inside; he collapses in a heap on his bed, and even without a light on Lily notices the gashes.

“ _Merlin_ , Potter, what did Lupin do to you?” she whispers, fishing in the pocket of his torn robe for his wand—she’s left hers behind in the study, and his wounds haven’t been given any attention for hours now.

“Not Moony,” Potter corrects me, surprisingly lucid as he struggles to sit up. “Padfoot. There was a fight…”

She tugs out his wand and starts easing him out of his robes, ignoring the heat in her face and focusing on the cuts running along his arms and torso. “You’re lucky your face didn’t get hit; you don’t want your mum noticing this,” she says softly, then adds, “A fight over _what_ , pray tell?”

“He was angry that I told you so much,” admits Potter, lying back down. Lily uses his robes to sponge off the blood before clumsily checking the biggest wound—a long gash across his abdomen—for internal bleeding with a simple spell. Thankfully, she finds none. “Wormtail or Moony would’ve tried to stop him, but Moony’s human mind is basically unconscious when he transforms, and Wormtail was too small to defend me—he Transfigures into a rat. We, er, keep the same forms every time so we’re familiar to Moony,” he adds, sucking in breath as Lily closes the wound and tests his skin with her hands.

“Look, Potter,” she says, “I’m not worth fighting for.”

“You are, though,” Potter counters. “You’re brilliant at this, you know. It would get rough a lot for the first few months with Moony, and we didn’t do nearly as good of a job patching each other up after. It drained all our energy just to do the bigger scrapes, and so we’d leave most of them… and we’d close the skin unevenly, or leave scars… and we never had time to do it thoroughly, that late in the morning.” His eyes are starting to brighten, which Lily takes as a good sign.

Glancing over his chest, she indeed notices a pattern of thick scars, many of which look uneven. “I wouldn’t call some of these _scrapes_ , Potter… do you still have pain in these? Discomfort?” The largest wounds are all closed, so she moves on to a cursory fix of the minor injuries.

Potter shrugs, then winces from the gesture. “Discomfort, usually, and occasional twinges…”

“I can fix those when I’m done, if you’d like, but I’ll have to reopen them. It’ll be painless, but after tonight, I don’t know if your body can take the trauma…” she considers.

“There’s always tomorrow,” he reminds her. “You don’t have to finish today; the Ministry will get suspicious about why my mum might be Healing someone at five in the morning…”

“Next time this happens,” she says darkly—because they both know that there will be a next time—as she closes the last open wound, “you come to me. All three of you. I’ll spend full moons in the common room when school starts up.”

He shakes his head, but already he’s started to doze off. “Oh, Red, don’t waste your energy on us,” he argues groggily, but his head is drooping to the side, his glasses sliding down his nose. He turns his head suddenly to look at her, though, just before he nods off, and comments, “Are those my pajamas?”

Lily shakes her head, laughing, then sets his glasses on his bedside table and tucks him under the covers. Stashing his robes in a corner of his half-unpacked trunk, she takes one last look at Potter before leaving him to his slumber.


	7. July 11th

Lily wakes up extra-early on Sunday morning to find Potter before his mother finds the bloody robes in his trunk. She intends just to cast a quick _Scourgify_ and leave, but something in the way he snores gives her pause. “Potter,” she says gently, nudging his shoulder. He rolls over and stretches blearily, fumbling for his glasses. “How are you feeling?”

“Decent,” he replies. She gives him a long, searching look, then goes to his trunk and start to unroll his robes.

“No pain? No soreness?” she presses, holding the robes up for him to see. “Because judging by the looks of these stains, it’s worse than you’re letting on.”

Potter bites his lip, conflicted. “Maybe a little pain,” he admits, wincing as he sits up—by which he means that, yes, it aches.

Lily tuts softly—she’d hoped to finish mending him now, but to no avail. “I don’t know if you’ve recovered enough for me to perform any _more_ magic on you,” she says of the poorly healed cuts she’d meant to fix. “I’d do it when I see you this weekend, but it’s a Muggle area, it’s not safe…”

“This weekend?” He looks bewildered, even for this hour.

“Well, you didn’t think I was going to go to Tuney’s wedding _alone_ , did you?” It takes Potter a minute to process this (during which Lily cleans the robes and tucks them neatly back into the trunk), but when he does, he beams.

The idea seems to give him enough energy to sit up properly, the covers falling around him. He glances down, then back at me mischievously. “You changed my clothes? You _undressed_ me?”

“I wasn’t just going to let you sleep in soiled robes, was I? What if your mother found you before I did?” she argues, pushing him back down. “Go back to bed, Potter, you’ll need to get your rest now so you can say goodbye properly in a few hours.”

“Why’d you wake me up _now_ , then?” mutters Potter, but he reluctantly complies, following her with his eyes. “Wait—don’t go yet.”

Sighing, she sits on the bed with him, slumping her shoulders. “You’re quite the handful, Potter.”

“Same to you, Red,” he says, ruffling his hair. It doesn’t quite have the intended effect, as he smarts with the effort to raise his arm. “So tell me about this wedding—you said it’s for your sister, Petunia?”

Lily glares at him but softens when something in his eyes tells her he needs this. “Tuney, yeah. And her whale of a fiancé, Vernon Dursley… you’ll love him, I imagine, he can’t stand magic…”

In the next six hours, she takes a short nap, cleans out her guestroom, says goodbye to the Potters (Mrs. Potter kisses her cheek and makes her promise to write), and returns to the McKinnons’ house to find Marlene fiery at her arrival. “You decided to stay the weekend with the bloke and didn’t even _tell_ me first?” she demands, hands on her hips, the moment Lily steps out of the fireplace.

“I Flooed in to tell you! Do you have _any_ idea how uncomfortable it is to only send your head over?” she says, marching down the hall to their shared room. Marlene tails her, wagging a finger.

“Yeah, _after you’d agreed_ ,” Marlene points out. “Some mate you are, staying the weekend with your love interest and not telling me…”

Lily throws her knapsack at her. Marlene dodges it, shrieking. “Potter’s not my love interest.”

“Like hell he isn’t,” she says but doesn’t further pursue this line of questioning. Instead, she asks, “So how was it? Did you bond?”

Lily shakes her head, not wanting to mention the drama. “I read; he popped in occasionally. I saw Pettigrew and Lupin on Friday—I think he had the other Marauders over for a while. Anything interesting happen while I was gone?” she adds.

“O.W.L. results. I’ll get yours…” says Marlene offhand, meandering into the kitchen (Lily takes the opportunity to retrieve her knapsack and start unpacking what little she’d brought to Potter’s). Following a series of sifting noises, Marlene emerges—Lily’s stomach promptly clenches up. “It says they’ll send out booklists in August for the classes we qualify for, and then we can buy books for whichever ones we want to continue in. Here—” and she hands Lily an envelope bearing an unbroken Hogwarts crest.

She tosses aside the empty knapsack and opens the envelope, her hands trembling. “Did Herbology go all right for you?” she asks to divert Marlene’s attention, unfolding the letter.

“Yes!” Marlene says, delighted. “An A. I got an E in Astronomy and an A in Care of Magical Creatures, but I don’t need to continue with those—Ps in Arithmancy and History of Magic, but that’s to be expected—”

Relief washes over her as Lily skims through the results. “I got an E in McGonagall’s; I can take N.E.W.T.-level Transfiguration!”

“Me, too—that’s marvelous, Lily!” says Marlene, knowing of Lily’s difficulties with the subject. “Os in Potions and Charms, right?”

“And in History of Magic and Defense Against the Dark Arts,” she confirms. She’s surprised herself with this one—she hadn’t thought herself much of a dueler before the exam. “Any for you?”

Marlene nods. “Defense also, and Muggle Studies—but I’m dropping that, too; I’ve learned enough to get by with Muggles when I need to. What are you taking? I’m doing Defense, Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, and Herbology—just the five I’ll need for Auror training.”

“Seven. I’m dropping Divination, Astronomy, and Herbology—sorry,” she adds, knowing how much Marlene hates the latter of the three. “So I’m taking Potions, Charms, Defense Against the Dark Arts, History of Magic—the Os—”

“I can’t believe you got an O in History… how can you _learn_ in that class with Binns teaching?” she cuts in.

“I want to go into law, remember? I’ve got to stay on top of my wizarding knowledge, especially internationally,” Lily reminds her. “And then Tranfiguration, Arithmancy, and Ancient Runes—all Es.”

Marlene rolls her eyes melodramatically. “Did you even flunk _one_ exam? Get a single A? Figures…” she concludes following Lily’s pause.

“Hey—I took _Divination_ , remember? I got an A in that,” she says defensively. “It’s not like you should be _proud_ that you failed two subjects…”

“Oh, shut it,” says Marlene. “I sent out owls to the girls—Mare bombed literally _half_ hers, and Em’s only O was in Divination, which goes without saying, really.”

Lily raises her eyebrows. “Mary did poorly? What’s she taking next year?”

“Arithmancy, Defense, Herbology, and Care of Magical Creatures,” replies Marlene promptly. “The last two were obvious—she’s going to be a wizarding naturalist, she said—but I’m shocked she got an A in Arithmancy, she mostly just copies my work in it.”

Lily doesn’t comment on their lack of ethics. “So all of us are taking Defense Against the Dark Arts, then,” she presumes, and Marlene nods. It’s a difficult subject—Mary in particular is wretched at it—but in these times, it’s scarier not to learn to defend oneself than to risk failing a N.E.W.T. “When will we get our books, then? I know we were all going to go shopping together…”

Marlene shrugs. “Like I said, booklists don’t come out until August, so we have a while to wait still. I was thinking of getting us all together at my place this weekend, though—”

“Can’t; that’s the wedding,” Lily declines. “Potter and I will both be gone—we’re leaving for my house on Thursday.”

“Jay? I thought…” Marlene trails off, batting her overlong bangs out of her eyes.

Lily recalls, suddenly, that everyone thinks she’s going with Lupin. “Remus couldn’t make it in the end—I think the mental image of Vernon might have scared him off—Potter was the obvious second choice,” she says hastily.

There’s something funny about the way Marlene’s smiling at her, but Lily lets it go for now. “He’ll be staying at your place the whole weekend?”

“Yeah. The wedding’s on Sunday, but we have to help prepare first—obligatory family responsibilities, you know, even though I’m not formally invited… well, Mum _says_ I am, but Tuney wouldn’t send out an invitation, anyway.” She lobs the O.W.L. results onto a nightstand and collapses on her cot, stretching. “I should call Dad to let him know I’m bringing a guest; he and Mum are convinced I’m going to make up with Severus and invite him, I reckon…”

“You do that,” agrees Marlene fervently. “Phone’s in the kitchen.”

“I know—your mum bought it for me, remember?”

She rolls her eyes as Lily stretches and gets up. “Smart aleck. Honestly, four Outstanding O.W.L.s…”

xx

Thursday is coming sooner than Lily would like, not because she’s dreading seeing Potter again but because she knows she won’t be coming back to the McKinnons’ after Tuney’s wedding. Neither she nor Marlene brings it up to the other, but Marlene doesn’t raise questions when she finds Lily packing her trunk, and Lily refrains from commenting that the Gryffindor gathering Marlene puts together on Wednesday feels an awful lot like a going-away party. Lily appreciates the (unvoiced) sentiment, but it’s still fairly awkward, especially between her and the Marauders: Pettigrew tries—unsuccessfully—to get Potter to avoid her, Black glares when he thinks she’s not looking, and Lupin… Lupin won’t meet her eyes, not that she’s keen on talking to him herself.

She keeps close by Potter and Marlene, for the most part. It’s funny how they’ve come to be Lily’s closest friends this past month, not that “closest” says much these days; she wouldn’t have pegged them as her type. Indeed, she’s gotten to know them more because of proximity than anything, not that a lack thereof would have stopped Potter. Spending so much time with Marlene, though, makes Lily realize how far from the other Gryffindors she drifted by befriending Severus—she didn’t know Marlene lives in Scotland, she didn’t notice Marlene’s relationship with Black that seems so obvious now, she didn’t even know that Marlene has a stepfather…

The morning of her departure, she Flooes to Potter’s after her fix of Common Welsh Greens cereal and a quick, painless goodbye from the McKinnons and Marlene, who makes her promise to write weekly and come see her after the wedding. Helene’s Manor is no less impressive than the last time Lily stayed there, but to her surprise and good fortune, she comes out at the living room fireplace this time, where Mrs. Potter is waiting to Side-Along-Apparate Lily to her house (which, of course, is not connected to the Floo Network). “I’m so glad you’re taking James with you,” Mrs. Potter tells her, pulling her into an embrace despite not knowing her well. “He’s been so looking forward to this all week—talks about it nonstop—”

To Lily’s great surprise, Potter blushes. “Can we go, Mum?” he asks impatiently, heaving his trunk across the room towards them. “I don’t want to keep the Evanses waiting long.”

“Yes, of course, dear,” says his mother unhurriedly. “If you’ll both just grab my arm and keep a tight hold on your trunks…”

After a painful sensation of compression, they appear in Lily’s kitchen: Apparating outside would have been too suspicious, given her Muggle neighbors. It’s a small house—just one story high, with three bedrooms and only one bathroom—but Potter doesn’t seem to mind, remarking in her ear, “Cozy place you have, Red.” She rolls her eyes but thanks him nonetheless: he tends to seem insufferable, but he means well, Lily knows that now.

Only a few seconds after the incoming _crack_ , Mum rushes in to greet them; her white-blonde hair is even lighter with fresh highlights for the occasion, Lily notices immediately. “Dorea! How lovely to see you again—it was such a joy meeting you the other day.” Just as she’s turning to ask Potter about this, he explains under his breath: his mum flew to Lily’s house a few days ago so that she’d be familiar enough with the premises to Apparate here. “And you must be James? A pleasure to meet you as well—I’ve heard such wonderful things about you.”

“It’s good to meet you, too, Mrs. Evans,” Potter says, stifling a laugh—they both know that Mum certainly has not heard wonderful things about him, at least not from Lily. “You must be proud of Lily—she’s a brilliant witch.”

“Lily?” Mum turns a critical eye on her, surveying with evident displeasure her oily face, tangled hair, and slouched shoulders. “Yes, absolutely—a witch in the family, think of it—though it doesn’t do for her to let herself go like this…”

There’s a brief, uncomfortable pause as Lily stares Mum down, as though daring her to find fault in her disregard for posture or cosmetics. Finally, Potter broaches the silence, his face reddening again, presumably this time with anger: “Not that it’s any of my business, but if you tilt your head a little to the left and squint—” (“ _James_ ,” Mrs. Potter reprimands him sharply) “—if you ask _me_ , I think she’s beautiful.”

Lily flushes scarlet but stiffly maintains her glare. Mum’s delight at meeting Potter dissolves somewhat, and she rounds on him next, saying, “Yes, well, good though your intentions may be, you lack the feminine view necessary to understand this. It’s no matter to _you_ that my daughter hasn’t been able to find a proper suitor with her complexion—”

“Right, because you had such good judgment pushing Snivellus on her all these years,” says Potter hotly.

Sensing the escalating tensions, Mrs. Potter interrupts, “Well, I’d best be off, dears, can’t have the hospital waiting on me. I’ll come pick you up on Monday morning, all right, James?” Mum deflates while Mrs. Potter kisses her son’s cheek and hugs Lily in parting; by the time it’s just the three of them, the impending row looks to have been averted.

“Well, don’t just stand there gawking at each other, you two,” says Mum, flustered (though it’s just Lily gawking at Potter, who’s intent on evil-eyeing Mum). “Petunia! Pet, honey, come in here and greet your sister and her guest!”

Lily cringes as Tuney reluctantly sidles into the kitchen. For a blushing bride-to-be, she looks miserable—her horse-like face is contorted into a grimace, and she spares no words for Lily, offering Potter only a simple, “Nice to meet you.” Mum knows not to push it—the last thing she appears to need is for Potter to start attacking Tuney, too, for criticizing magic.

“All right, all right, enough of that,” decides Mum, much to Lily’s relief. “Petunia and I have to get to a bridesmaids dress fitting, so I suppose the two of you should pick out formalwear for the big day… your dad can take you when he’s ready, Lily, he’s in the shower at the moment. Be home by five for dinner, you hear?” Before Lily has a chance to speak for either of them, Mum’s left the kitchen with Tuney right on her tail, clipping her hair up and off her neck and whispering something in Tuney’s ear.

Lily just nods and pulls Potter out into the hall. “My room’s this way,” she says, inclining her head.

“Is she always like that?” he asks hoarsely, following her down a narrow hall. She nudges open the first door on the left with her toes; it swings open to reveal her bedroom, wallpapered Gryffindor maroon and gold. “Love the color scheme, by the way.”

“Who, Tuney? No, she’s usually a lot crabbier, actually,” Lily says lightly, pulling out her desk chair for him. “And thanks—my parents decorated it for me after I was Sorted, as a coming-home surprise at Christmas,” she adds of his latter remark.

Potter shakes his head, scratching his head and sitting down. “Your mum. She’s so… so…” He grasps silently for words, then gives up and gapes at Lily, open-mouthed.

“Oh, _Mum_? Usually she’s like that, yes,” she confirms, launching herself onto her bed. “Tuney gets her tastes from her—not that she’s quite so, er, _high-strung_ about anything. She’s more of a sulker, you know.”

“Please tell me you take after your father,” says Potter stubbornly, crossing his arms. “You deserve at least _one_ decent relative.”

She laughs nervously. “I guess you could say I take after Dad. My family’s all right, though—my cousins are brilliant, you’ll see why in a few days.”

“On your dad’s side?” he assumes.

“On _both_ sides,” Lily laughs, tucking her hair behind her ear.

There’s a bit of a pause as Potter looks around, taking in the plush carpet and the crack in the window, and looks like he’s on the verge of saying something dangerous. Eventually, he says in a rush, “Wouldn’t Snape have a problem with this place?”

Lily replies quickly, “He’s never been in my bedroom, actually—we used to hang out in my backyard, or sometimes the kitchen. I didn’t go to his house much; his parents fight.” He seems to accept this, and there’s another long silence. “Thanks for what you said back there,” she stammers, as Potter looks like he’s run out of words.

He doesn’t answer—just looks at her pensively for a long moment, inches his chair forward, and rests his hand on her cheek. She shivers involuntarily but doesn’t recoil; Potter smiles and closes his eyes. “You’re welcome,” he says finally, pulling back his hand—but he stays with his chair legs touching her bed, resting his arms on the duvet so that he’s level with her. After a moment, he brushes her hair behind her ear and asks softly, “How are you?”

“I’m all right,” Lily says, unsure of where this is headed. “And you?”

“I—”

A sharp knock at the door cuts Potter off, and they both straighten up, as if afraid to be caught so close together. “Come in,” Lily invites, drawing her knees up to her chest.

The door creaks as Dad pushes it open. He’s tall and balding, but there’s a youthful spark that hasn’t quite left his blue-grey eyes. “C’mon, Lil, your mother’s going to go into conniptions if she comes home to find that you haven’t left to pick out a dress yet. So you’re James, then?”

“James Potter. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Evans,” says Potter promptly, rising and extending a hand. Dad shakes it, looking satisfied. “I would have brought a tux, but wizards wear dress robes, not suits…”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Dad airily. “Even if you brought one, Rosie probably wouldn’t have approved of it… she’s a certain sort, Rose, she really is.” He grins and beckons them out of the room. “Ready to go?”

Potter waits, glancing between himself and Lily. “I look passable?”

Dad doesn’t know what to say to this, but Lily glances over his appropriately Muggle clothing—a basic red T-shirt and jeans. “You’re perfect,” she assures him, and she catches the beam that spreads over his face before we leave.

Potter and Dad get along surprisingly well, not that she appreciates their combined teasing as she tries on dress after dress. Dad is content just to laugh and tell her she looks ridiculous, but Potter is unafraid to hide his affections in front of Lily’s father, constantly commenting on her “radiant beauty” and even deigning to stoop and kiss her hand once (at which point she flinches and calls him an arrogant toerag—she’d forgotten how much she enjoys using that particular insult on him).

Eventually, she settles on a simple emerald dress and black heels—plain but comfortable, just as she like it. Dad warns her that Mum won’t be happy with her choice when she sees her on Sunday, but Potter disagrees, murmuring in her ear before she can slip back into the fitting rooms, “You look lovely, Red.” She blushes and thanks him, just catching her breath for a moment when she retreats behind the changing room door—pesky though he may be, she’s still not used to all the compliments.

Somehow, it takes even longer for Potter to pick out a tuxedo. Lily hadn’t expected him to be so selective—with every suit, it seems, he takes offense at the exact shade of the collar or length of the cuffs. When he’s finally settled on a solid black number, he vanishes into the tie racks with Dad, still debating whether pinstripes should be legal (Potter claims not, while Dad intends to wear them to the wedding); she shakes her head at their retreating figures and gets in line at the checkout.

After what feels like forever, they pay—Dad reluctantly allows Potter to pay for both their outfits, much to Lily’s chagrin. The drive back is equally painful for her as Potter bonds with her father, and by the time she gets out of the car, Dad’s muttering in her ear, “Why haven’t you ever brought _him_ home before?”

“It’s complicated,” she says with finality, heaving her purchases into her arms and kicking the door shut behind her. And indeed it is—hadn’t she on-and-off hated him just over a month ago?

The rest of the day isn’t nearly as strained as Lily had feared. Though Potter and Mum are at underlying odds and Tuney wants nothing to do with either of the wizards, Dad’s able to smooth over the tensions, peacemaker that he is. It only gets uncomfortable when nighttime comes: there isn’t a spare bedroom, and Potter hadn’t brought a sleeping bag.

“Lily, give James your room,” instructs Mum, and there’s a purse to her lips that shows she won’t take no for an answer.

Potter gives Lily a quick glance and then tells Mum, “That’s really not necessary, Mrs. Evans, I’ll just sleep on the couch—”

“You’re a guest in our home, James, and I won’t have you sleeping in the living room like a schoolgirl friend of Petunia’s,” says Mum firmly. “Lily, get your pajamas so James can go to bed, and for God’s sake, take a bath, you look like you haven’t showered in days.”

“Right, because she’d rather look unnaturally polished and proper—” Potter starts sullenly.

“And what right do _you_ have to tell me how to raise my daughter?” Mum rounds on him. At the late hour, she’s more disheveled than normal: her mussed hair has half fallen out of the clip, and worry lines are visible beneath her smudged powder. “All day, I have done nothing but accommodate you—”

Dad rests a hand on Mum’s shoulder. “Calm down, Rosie, he doesn’t mean any harm,” he murmurs, but neither Mum nor Potter is having any of it.

“Actually, you’ve done nothing but make backhanded remarks about how much you disapprove of your daughter,” he says with conviction, “and you take advantage of her tolerance of it to abuse her even further. Just because she’s not a carbon-copy of Petunia—”

“You leave Pet out of this!” Mum demands, her hands on her hips. “ _I_ am Lily’s mother, and it would certainly do her some good to take my advice every once in a while. Walking around looking positively uncivilized, her nose always in a book, never bringing anyone around but Severus—it wouldn’t kill her to be _ladylike_ every once in a while.”

Tuney turns up her nose and tugs lightly on Mum’s elbow. “Don’t bother, Mum. She’s a freak, not a lady—”

“You say that now,” snaps Potter, “but she has more class than either of you could _ever_ dream of. You talk about Lily like she’s wasting her potential, probably because I doubt she’s ever been able to confide in you about how hard her life is—you try being alienated by all your roommates because they don’t like your best friend, or being the brightest witch in your year and still not making prefect because you’re not goody-two-shoes enough, or having to walk through the hallways and being sworn at for your parentage every time you turn a corner—”

Her face fast reddening, Lily interrupts, “That’s enough for one night.” Potter takes a deep breath and doesn’t stop fuming, but he heeds her warning and says nothing more. Mum looks dangerously indignant and stalks off with Tuney; Dad just blinks at the both of them, then sighs and runs off to find Mum and mollify her. Sighing heavily, Lily guides Potter into her bedroom by the arm, murmuring, “In here.”

He looks ready to burst. “How do you _live_ like this?” he says outright, slouching against the closed door. “How do you take the criticism _every day_ …?”

She’s tempted to ask why he cares, but she knows better than to question her only friend in the house (Dad, considering that he married Mum, is neutral territory). “It’s all right. I usually stay at Hogwarts for the holidays, so it’s just in the summer when I see them, and I have— _had_ —Severus then.”

“It’s like you don’t even realize how bad you have it,” sulks Potter, slumping to the floor in a worn, defeated manner. Lily joins him, their shoulders brushing. “I almost can’t blame you for having liked him so much; the alternative isn’t much better, if you’d just take a listen around the rumor mill every so often…”

“I gathered,” she says darkly, referring to Lupin and Pettigrew’s stunt back at the Manor. “Look, Potter—I don’t want to be a martyr.”

He faces her, squinting in the light of the waning moon. “When did I ever martyr you?”

Lily props her arms up on her knees. “Well—not a _martyr_ , exactly. You just put me on this pedestal like I’m Hester Prynne or something…”

His eyebrows crease in confusion. “Hester Prynne?”

“I forget; you haven’t read the Muggle classics.” She chuckles softly, tracing idle designs on her jeans. “You asked how I take it—it’s by not fixating on it. And I appreciate the support around here, I _really_ do—” Potter perks up and grins at her for this “—but I don’t need pity, and I don’t want you fighting any battles for me.”

“If you won’t, someone ought to,” he protests meekly, but he lets it go as she shakes her head and smiles.

Lily gets up, crossing to her trunk. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a shower to take,” she says cheerfully, grabbing a pair of pajamas and a towel, “unless you want something else to fight my mum on.” He laughs heartily and stands to let her pass through the doorway, but before she opens it to leave, she adds, “Potter—thank you.”

“Any time, Red,” Potter vows, smiling. There’s a fresh spring in her step as she walks down the hall to the bathroom, and not even passing a bitter-looking Tuney on the way down dampens it.

The next few days pass without much event. Tuney’s fiancé, Vernon, pops in and out—never staying for longer than an hour, much to Lily’s relief; there’s enough animosity in the house between Potter, Mum, and Tuney without adding Vernon’s hatred of magic into the mix. Though Potter is regularly on the verge of an outburst with Mum, he keeps his defiance in check—only because Lily’s made it clear that she doesn’t want any fighting on her behalf, she’s sure. Dad alone is as easygoing as always, cracking jokes and keeping the mood light: without his peacemaking, Mum and Potter would indisputably come to a head sooner or later.

Somehow, though, they don’t, and they’re somehow still on speaking terms by Saturday evening. “We’d best be off to the dress rehearsal,” says Mum, stretching, after lunch. “We’re going out with the bridesmaids’ families after, Lily, so we’ll be a few hours… Pet, you’re leaving for your bachelorette party right after?”

Tuney nods, folding her hands in her lap. “Linda says that everything’s settled—we’re all going to drive in her car.”

“All right,” says Mum placidly. “Behave yourself, Lily.” Potter bristles but says nothing.

“That goes for you, too, James,” says Dad cheerfully.

Lily blushes, but Potter just grins. “Of course, Mr. Evans. Good luck,” he pleasantly wishes Tuney, and she nods, mumbling thanks—it may be the most polite interaction Lily’s seen between the pair in the past three days.

They leave within the next few minutes—Mum rounds up Dad and Tuney on the way out much like a teacher gathers her preschoolers before crossing a busy street—leaving Lily fully alone with Potter for the first time since the full moon. It takes them a minute to get used to the freedom of it—then Potter is quick to break the ice. “All Outstanding marks on your O.W.L.s, then, Red?”

She gives an ironic little laugh. “Only four out of ten, sorry to say.”

Potter raises an eyebrow. “And they call you a nerd…”

She sinks into her seat, sighing. “How do you _do_ that?” she says with exasperation, shutting her eyes tight.

“Do what?” he replies, smiling innocently at her when Lily glances at him again.

She waves a hand vaguely in his direction. “Poke fun at me for living out of the library and stressing about Acceptable marks, but still make me feel like I’m normal when I’m around you.”

He chooses not to comment on her sudden depth, instead responding, “I’m glad I make you feel normal.” Lily laughs again, feeling suddenly amiable, and gets up. “Where are you going?”

“You think I’m going to trip all over your feet dancing at the reception tomorrow because I’m not used to wearing high heels?” She ignores Potter’s surprised expression and pulls him to his feet. “Come on, get up, get changed—where did you leave the dress shoes you brought with you?…”

Ten minutes later, she emerges from the bathroom, dress and all, to meet him—he’s clicking his heels and ruffling his hair, seemingly with impatience or anxiety, and it hits her right then that maybe his preoccupation with his hair doesn’t stem from arrogance. “Took you long enough,” he mumbles, looking Lily over—she realizes self-consciously that the dress is a bit form-fitting, compared to her robes or usual Muggle apparel. “You’re pretty.”

“Thanks… er…” She glances at his crisp new tuxedo and improperly knotted tie, then meets his eyes. “You look nice yourself,” she tells him, and for once, she means this.

“No,” Potter says, surprising me, “you don’t _look_ pretty—well, you do look pretty, but—I meant that you _are_ pretty. Every day. Whether or not your mum thinks you’ve let yourself go.” He wears a genuine smile and extends a hand. “Care to dance?”

Lily doesn’t know what to say to this— _any_ of this—so she just nods and takes his hand, letting him pull her down the hall and into the living room. He’s pushed all the furniture against the walls, she realizes, leaving a sizable space in the center of the floor; the lights are off and the shades pulled, shrouding the room in evening light, even though it’s barely two o’clock.

It’s nothing like their fast dances at the concert. They practice at first—Lily tripping in her shoes and nearly knocking them both over at first before they finally find a rhythm—but then they slip out of formality, her arms both around his neck, his voice low in her ear. “I knew you could dance, Red, but you scared me for a while back there—I didn’t think you could pull it off in heels.”

“People surprise you every day,” she says, revolving on the spot. “For instance, I didn’t think you had it in you to be a decent human being until recently.”

“Proved you wrong on that one, didn’t I?” chuckles Potter. He squeezes her middle for a moment in something like a hug, then loosens his grip. “I’m glad I’ve proven my humanity to you, in any case.”

She can’t say she’s surprised when he leans in and kisses her cheek, but she still chides lightly, “Don’t push your luck, Potter.”

His laughter follows her into the kitchen as the telephone starts to ring. Idly wondering whether Marlene will ever be willing to use hers, Lily answers it with a cheerful, “Hello?”

Something shifts in her mind when she hears the words that follow, and she stands there alone long after the conversation is over. A piece of her notices Potter step in, set the phone she dropped back in its cradle, and gently ask what’s happened.

“Car crash,” she says, her throat dry. “Tuney was with the bridesmaids, thank God… They said it was painless, for both of them.”

Potter freezes midway through rumpling his hair—it would have looked comical just a few minutes ago. “Lily, I’m—”

Saving him the trouble of articulating an apology, Lily buries her face in his just-bought suit jacket and sobs.

xx

**END OF PART ONE**


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